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Electro-Voice RX System Excites British Cheerleaders
Britain's premier cheerleading event organiser Future Cheer has invested in its own PA system for its increasingly popular events in the UK. The Electro-Voice RX system, powered by EV amplifiers and used in conjunction with EV radio microphones, received its championship debut at Loughborough University this month.
Cheerleading is one of the fastest-growing sports in the UK, currently involving more than 11,000 participants across the country's 300-plus clubs. Already accepted as an athletic discipline in its own right in many countries, cheerleaders have to master difficult and demanding athletic techniques, often training longer hours than the sportsmen they cheer for.
Future Cheer is a leading member of the International All-Star Federation, the world-wide governing authority for competitive cheer and dance. In the hands of its resident sound engineer Everard James, its new Electro-Voice RX system made its first appearance at one of the five regional competitions leading up to the national championships.
The Heart of England Cheer & Dance Championships were staged in the 2,000 sq.metre Sports Hall at Loughborough University. In this sizeable venue, filled with cheerleaders from 48 competing teams, Everard James unpacked the new RX system and put it straight into service; RX212 and RX115/75 stacks left and right of the performance area, driven by EV CP4000 and CP3000 amplifiers, and teamed with a new DX38. EV's flagship digital sound system processor provides 48-bit filter algorithms, 24-bit AD/DA conversion and a dynamic range of 115 dB, and is described by James as "an absolute godsend, providing compressors on both outputs and inputs so I don't have to worry about spikes on the music tracks, many of which have been recorded at home."
The EV RX system fulfils a variety of functions at the large Future Cheer events. During the breaks in competition, there is musical entertainment, using CD playback to keep the audience amused, even dancing. The system is used for a lot of spoken announcements, both about competition news and about health and safety matters. And most important of all, it is used to play the 'Cheer Music' to which all teams perform. "Some of it is produced by the teams themselves, and it can be quite dramatic," says James, who had to EQ on the fly to handle sudden and unexpected effects, until his DX38 arrived.
The RX system was specified by Everard James, an experienced DJ and recording studio owner who has toured the world with DJ Carl Cox, and been involved with cheerleading events for many years, in the first instance as a writer of Cheer Music. "I've worked with a lot of high-end PA systems, and I knew the sort of sound I was looking for. Deep bass, clear highs, a system that can really hammer and get both performers and audience going. Throughout this process, Shuttlesound has been so welcoming and helpful to me, understanding how important a reliable PA system is to our competitors; they train for ages for these events, so if the PA breaks down, all hell breaks loose."
Future Cheer has also purchased a trio of EV's RE2-410 handheld radio mics, which gave crisp vocal clarity and stable RF performance wherever they were used throught the large sports hall with no feedback problem, and coped even with enthusiastic comperes shouting encouragement to the teams. "In Loughborough, where the system was ready to go straight out of the box, we received many compliments on how clear the announcements were sounding, and also about the music, especially the deep sub-bass which we can, and do, listen to all day."
In picture: Andera Kulberg, Ian Crow and Tessa Crow of Future Cheer, with Everard James, sound engineer,
9th March 2007
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