GLASTONBURY: John Peel stage goes digital

News

Rob Hughes Jun 4 2008, 10:00am

Yamaha and South West Audio to set up 24-bit 96 kHz signal from mic to amp

The 2008 Glastonbury Festival, held June 27 to 29, will be the first to feature an entirely 24-bit 96 kHz digital stage from microphone through to power amp courtesy of Yamaha and South West Audio.

The iconic John Peel Stage – the third most high profile arena at Glastonbury – will host performances by 32 artists over the weekend, including British Sea Power, Spiritualized, Biffy Clyro, The Futureheads, The National, Band of Horses, The Kills, Reverend and the Makers, MGMT and The Cribs.

Nick ‘Biggles’ Pemberton, both a Yamaha technical sales specialist and freelance sound engineer has designed the audio system in collaboration with Yamaha installation manager, Scott Fraser.

“The console side of the system is driven by engineer demand,” says Nick. “The industry has now moved to many sound engineers specifying digital consoles as standard, so SWA stated that they wanted digital consoles on the John Peel Stage, and that they had to be Yamaha PM5Ds.”

Complementing a PM5DRH at both the FOH and monitor positions is a DSP5D, Yamaha’s new rack-mount extension which has all the facilities of a PM5D except the control surface. A dual Neutrik Opticon fibre optic trunk links FOH and monitors, while a digital audio EtherSound network links the control via an MY16ES64 interface card and three DME8o-ES satellite interfaces to 16 of Yamaha’s latest T5N amplifiers, powering a large EAW PA system.

“With monitors being mainly in-ears, there will be no analogue in the system at all,” says Pemberton. “All signals will be split to monitors and FOH at the stage box, with a further set of splits taking the signals to the BBC for broadcast and a recording truck, which itself will feature a Yamaha M7CL digital console.

Although relatively new, the system is already well tested. Leading theatre sound company Autograph is already using a similar system on two of their West End productions, with great success. And it has full redundancy built in.

In addition, Yamaha is offering training on the system to anyone who requires it. In early June, audio engineers will converge on Yamaha’s offices at Milton Keynes for some comprehensive pre-festival sessions.

“The way we are approaching it is to have an identical system rigged up and say ‘this is what is on the John Peel Stage this year. Here’s your chance to try it out and get some comprehensive training before the festival’,” says Pemberton. “That way, any engineers who will be using the system can be fully prepared.”

“I believe it’s a really great system,” he concludes. “It has already proved itself and we want to show it off, to demonstrate the future of amplified sound in the most challenging environment. It will be a stern test, but with full redundancy built in I am fully confident that its reliability will match its sound quality.”
yamaha.co.uk