Tecno Son Espectáculos had previously handled one of the festival’s smaller stages using NEXO GEO D and CD18 systems. The arrival of the new NEXO STM system in early summer 2013 caught the interest of Eduardo Gonzalez, audio technical manager from production and booking company OCESA. Gonzalez took the decision to debut STM on the Corona stage, one of two main stages, along with other components from Tecno Son Espectáculos’ existing NEXO inventory.
Acts performing on the Corona stage included Deadmau5, Queens of the Stone Age, The XX, White Lies, The Breeders and Miles Kane.
Main PA: 18x M46 + 18x B112 , 30x S118 subs per side
Outfill: 12x M46 + 12x B112 per side
Delays: 3 towers, each with 18x GEO T + 6x CD18
Monitoring: 18x PS15
Side/front fill: Alpha and Alpha-E
The system consisted of a total of 180 STM units. The main L/R arrays consisted of 18x M46 main cabinets with 18x B112 bass units flown alongside; a L/R outfill side array of 12x M46s and 12x B112s and a total of 30x S118 subs per side. There were also three delay towers of 16x GEO T4805s with 2x GEO T2815s and 6x CD18 subs in each tower.
On stage, monitoring was provided by 18x Nexo PS15s, with 2x PS15s for drum fills and 2x LS1200 subs each, a side fill rig of 4x Alpha EMs, 2x Alpha B1-18s, and 2x ground-stacked CD18s per side. Front fill was 4x Alpha E-Fs. Zenteno called in two neighbouring NEXO owners with whom he works, Star and Roa, to provide some extra boxes for the delay towers and outfills.
“We’d already used STM on the Ceremony festival, and this gave us confidence when it came to designing the system for this festival along with system engineer Ignacio Sanchez and technical manager Eduardo Gonzalez,” says Tecno Son Espectáculos owner Sergio Zenteno. “The main STM system was angled to provide coverage from the front row to a depth of 120 metres, overlapping with GEO T delay towers at 100 metres.”
During the Corona festival, Zenteno doubled up as FOH Engineer for some of the artists, mixing for jazz funk band Quadron as well as DJ Chris Lake and headliner Deadmau5. “The result was wonderful, full of power and headroom and rich and balanced across the frequency spectrum,” he says. “I had never in my life heard a sound with this level of performance. This view was reiterated by the artists’ engineers as well as the organisers.”
Zenteno is enjoying getting to grips with STM and the flexibility and efficiency it offers. “I had already used the STM on two separate occasions, including at an outdoor amphitheater with a depth of 85 metres and a height of 30 meters at the last tier of the audience,” he says. “The second time we didn’t even use the S118 subs as we had 2,000 musicians using part of the audience area, so we used a wide range B112, which gave us an excellent bass response.
Zenteno has been a dedicated NEXO fan from the moment he encountered the company during an AES seminar on line array technology in 2002. “I immediately understood that NEXO is very different from the other brands, employing a superior technology,” he says.
He started his company the following year with a GEO S System, building up his NEXO inventory from there. In May he took delivery of 108 STM cabinets following a factory visit to France, which left him suitably impressed by the new system.
“All of the audio industry is working on solutions to implement more SPL, but the difference with NEXO STM is that they’ve improved on the volume with very high fidelity and a homogeneous response across the whole audience area,” says Zenteno. “No other system can reproduce the high frequencies over a great distance like NEXO, and with the STM in particular, across the extended range.”
STM has given Tecno Son Espectáculos a new lease of life as well as expanding the capabilties of its existing NEXO inventory.
For further information:
www.tecnoson.com.mx/