For the past six years, the French city of Nantes has been treated to a performance from a 1,000-strong choir of local singers aged from seven to 89 each July. Spectacular in itself, this year’s experience was enhanced with the use of a L-Isa Live, sound reinforcement concept introduced by L-Acoustics founder Christian Heil.
UrbanVoices is a multifaceted project organied by the association of the Cité Monde [World City], which takes place over several months and is open to the entire city of Nantes. Karim Ammour is Artistic Director and creator of the project, entitled The City is Beautiful, and also its composer and conductor. It offers an eclectic programme that honours mankind and nature, and features compositions that range from reggae, soul, pop and gospel to RnB, with the singers accompanied by a singer/guitarist, three beatboxers, a percussionist and DJ.
With 40 singing rehearsals spread over eight weeks in 18 different locations, UrbanVoices is a musical adventure that culminates in the Grand Collective Urban Nantais in the 2,000-seat Grand Auditorium of La Cité Des Congrès Nantes.
Klaus Blasquiz, a renowned musician best known for his band Magma and musical director of UrbanVoices, had approached L-Acoustics with his wish to provide something special and more immersive for this year’s event: ‘He visited our L-Isa auditorium in Paris together with Karim Ammour,’ says Sherif el Barbari, Head of Application at L-Isa. ‘We introduced them both to the capabilities of our L-Isa Live concept, which immediately convinced them to be very suitable for what they wanted to achieve.’
The team produced a design for an L-Isa Live set-up for UrbanVoices comprising five L-Acoustics Kara arrays of six elements each for the scene area, plus two 12XT per side for extended panoramic expansion. This front system was complemented by two flown SB18 per side for low frequency extension and stacked SB28s on the stage floor for ultralow frequency content. Front fill was handled by six 8XT speakers along the downstage edge.
‘The choir was divided into two groups of 500, alternating throughout the six performances over the weekend,’ el Barbari says. ‘The beatbox performers produced unbelievably low frequency content, which justified the use of large subwoofers to handle their signal.
‘The massive choir provided the basis for a very wide immersive experience which really benefitted from the L-Isa configuration, while the localisation of Karim’s vocal and the instruments was maintained for every seat in the audience and with a clarity that is usually missed in a conventional LR approach.’
‘L-Isa Live connects the sound with the visual image of the artists performing on the stage,’ adds Mickaël Sourisseau, Technical Manager of La Cité des Congrés. ‘It gives every member of the audience the optimum sound and consistency with what they are seeing, not just those in the seats located in the central axis of the scene.
‘It was a great opportunity to deploy the L-Acoustics system – acquired two years ago during an upgrade to the Citè’s PA – in a new configuration, that introduces the audience to a truly immersive experience.’
L-Isa live claims hyper-realistic localisation, connecting what is seen and what is heard. Acoustical events are perceived as if they were emerging from the source, completely focusing the listener’s attention on the performance. It requires the placement of a front speaker system, consisting of at least five arrays/loudspeakers, along with an L-Isa Processor that provides an object-orientated mixing through L-Isa Controller software. To achieve optimum results, loudspeakers need to be installed in suitable spots to provide the desired localisation.
More: http://l-isa-music.com
