With the opening of the Zepp@Bigbox live venue in Singapore, NEXO’s STM Series modular line array is showcased in a glamorous and adventurous new performance space. Featuring Yamaha digital consoles, the house sound spec includes all four STM modules for main PA, as well as NEXO 45*N-12 line monitors and PS Series wedges for stage monitoring.
The Zepp concept started in Japan nearly 20 years ago, where the Zepp Hall Network was equipping venues with standardised sound/lighting/stage specifications. A collaboration with Singapore-based Big Box Investment sees the first new venue in Asia opening in the Mega Box Event Hall.
The decision on how to equip the new performance space was taken by the Zepp Hall Network’s Japanese consultant and Shinichiro Honda, hall director of Zepp@Bigbox. “We needed a good support network, and Yamaha has subsidiaries throughout Asia, so they can offer very good support for their systems. In addition, sound engineers in Japan are very familiar with Yamaha consoles and everyone knows how to operate a CL 5, which we’ve installed here at FOH. We wanted to open the doors to everyone, while, at the same time, providing a very good quality. And that’s why we chose to use Yamaha consoles and NEXO speakers for our first overseas ventures.”
Lawrence Tan of Yamaha Music (Asia) supplied all this equipment for the 3,500 sq. m. hall. The system design team, including integrator Atelier Vista, worked closely with NEXO’s Nicolas Poitrenaud, using NEXO’s NS-1 configuration and simulation software to work out solutions to tackle tricky room acoustics.
For what is essentially a rock music venue, the system was designed to be highly efficient and energetic.
9x M46 main modules + 9x B112 bass modules per side
2x M28 omnipurpose modules per side for downfill
28x S118 subbass modules across the front of the stage.
5x M28 modules stacked on the S118s for frontfill
Stage monitoring is provided by 8x PS15-R2 and 8x 45*N-12 wedges, plus 2x Alpha sidefill cabinets.
The system is driven by 6x NXAMP4x4 controller/amplifiers fitted with NXDT104 Dante audio network cards, providing a total of 96 channels.
NEXO cabinets have been delivered with touring dollies, so the system can easily be derigged and redeployed in a different venue if required. If required, an adjacent hall can be added to the space by moving some partitions, thus creating more room for bigger shows. “One of the reasons we installed STM was for its scalability,” explains Lawrence Tan. “If the hall ever needs a bigger system, we can build it up. If there is a need to open up the second hall, they can rent in a delay speaker stack, and NEXO STM systems are readily available to rent in Singapore. For smaller shows, we can reduce the size of the system, and there is the possibility to deploy a part of it in a different area, so we could run two systems if we needed to. This has really created a new benchmark for Singapore.”
thanks to Pro Audio Asia magazine, for their assistance with this article.