Streetparade / MTV Party – FIR is Fun!

Straubing / Zurich, October 2007 Around 800,000 techno fans from all over the world flocked to Zurich in August for the annual Street Parade—one of the undoubted highlights of the techno calendar. In addition to the parade through the streets of the Swiss metropolis, the programme included around 100 indoor events, the biggest of which was the "Music 4 Life" party thrown by MTV and attended by some 13,000 ravers.
To satisfy the high demands of an occasion to which keen attention is paid by techno-lovers throughout the world, the organizers of the event entrusted production—as they had done the previous year—to MK Badensound of Renchen. A team led by Johannes Moeck dignified the event with the type of flat-out commitment, in terms of both resources and energy, it merited: it took a full 280 metres of cable to connect the entire network of amplifiers and loudspeakers, which comprised 124 DYNACORD V-System enclosures in four-point configurations either flown or mounted in the hall ceiling, all driven by twenty-two state-of-the-art DYNACORD Power H5000 power amplifiers.
"We used a similar loudspeaker configuration powered by the same amps last year," relates Moeck, "but with one salient difference: in 2006, we didn't yet have the new FIR filters. These really proved their worth this year. They were incredible, as both colleagues and the audience response confirmed. With the advent of the FIR filters, our performance once again took a giant leap forward."
Prior to the MTV party, the team from MK Badensound had only used the FIR filters for live music productions, such as a festival of German Volksmusik in Weil am Rhein and the International Samba Festival in Offenburg: "In both cases, the FIR filters made an enormous difference, optimizing system performance to deliver an unprecedented level of intelligibility." And, as the MTV party in Zurich proved, the playback of recorded music—in this case techno—also profits from the use of FIR filters. "The bass comes over incredibly well," affirms Moeck. "With the same output from the power amplifiers, the system delivers far more punch. The result is an outstanding sonic experience and it's effortlessly attained."
In a hall, of course, the engineer’s challenge is to adapt the sound system carefully to the acoustics of the room; at open-air concerts configuring the components can be far simpler—and more fun—with tools like FIR: "When there are no room reflections to worry about," explains Moeck, "there are less restrictions, and you can achieve a quality of sound previously unattainable. With the new FIR filter sets, we now have a fully-functional tool that not only allows us to improve still further the quality of sound we can provide but also considerably simplifies the task of doing so."

Equipment list for MTV's "Music 4 Life" party in Zurich (Extract)
Sound reinforcement
22 x  DYNACORD H 5000 with RCM 26 boards, FIR filter sets for the V system
IRIS Net system control (280 m)
36 x DYNACORD V 12-60
40 x DYNACORD V 17
52 x DYNACORD V 18
04 x DYNACORD V 30 FF
Stage monitoring
04  x DYNACORD V 17
16  x DYNACORD VM 15
04 x DYNACORD LX 3000
02  x DYNACORD LX 2200
FoH
01 x Midas Venice 320
02 x Klark Teknik DN 504
04 x Klark Teknik DN 360
01 x Klark Teknik DN 1248 active splitter

snapshot, 30th October, 2007