Established by the Sarawak Tourism Board and taking over the Sarawak Cultural Village tourist attraction every July, the Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching, Malaysia, draws renowned artists from all over the world as well as indigenous musicians from the Borneo interior – placing grassroots Malaysian world music on the same stage as internationally regognised stars.
The festival’s winning formula has been attracting large audiences from all around Southeast Asia and beyond for several years. During each afternoon, cultural workshops take place combined with lectures on ethno-musical topics, jamming sessions and breakout gigs, and then in the evening the main performances hit the two stages erected by Kuching-based rental company, Projection House. Kevin Phua has been a key figure at Projection House throughout its 18-year existence, and for the past four years has deployed the d&b V-Series at the festival. This year once again the Jungle Stage and the Tree Stage were built at 90° to each other and were set up for ‘ping-pong’ performances for maximum continuity.
‘Let’s say one band is performing on the Jungle Stage – so this is when we’ll get everything ready for the next band on the Tree Stage before the turnaround. Each band performance is estimated at 45 minutes, so that’s the time we have to line things up and keep the music flowing,’ Phua explains.
Both stages used 12 elements of the V8 three-way, passive line array loudspeaker, supported by four V12s; one stage had 12 V-Subs and the other used eight J-Subs – flyable cardioid subwoofers from the J-Series. Phua appreciates the infrastructure of the V-Series particularly in these sometimes challenging conditions: ‘Of course, the weather is unpredictable,’ he says. ‘Let’s face it, the site is completely surrounded by rainforest. But d&b’s rigging solutions and the excellent work from our technical teams do help, especially, the V-Series cabinets are not that heavy to handle.’
‘My job as a sound engineer is about bringing happiness to people,’ offers festical Technical Director, Niall Macaulay. ‘d&b provides the main PA for the two stages addressing an arena of around 7,000-8,000 people, and we use the V-Series for the tops and subs except for one stage which has J-Series subs. I find that d&b’s product range has a consistent sound across the range, and the flexibility to be able to mix and match products from throughout the catalogue and still achieve an even result.’
Projection House first bought a V System in 2015, adding another the following year specifically to cater for the Rainforest Festival.
‘I believe we were the first company in Borneo to invest in d&b, and we’re still the only company using d&b in Sarawak,’ Phua says. ‘The organiser of the Rainforest Festival are very happy with the quality of the d&b V System; it really is ideally suited for this event, so we’re glad we made the right choice by investing in V for the rainforest. We also look forward to developing our understanding of the system further in partnership with the d&b Asia-Pacific team in Singapore.’
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