The sound systems required for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies at the recent National Games 2015, held at the Greenfield Stadium in Kerala during February, reflected both the scale and importance of the event.
In keeping with the event’s stature, responsibility for the live sound and feeds for broadcast coverage of the event fell to leading sound reinforcement and turnkey audio systems specialist, Sound.Com.
Having handled sound for The Commonwealth Games 2010 in Delhi, Mumbai-based Sound.Com has taken sporting events to a new level of professionalism in India. Other important ceremonies handled sound for the Indian Premier League (cricket), Indian Super League (football) and the National Games in 2011, building a reputation for working to international standard. 
The National Games was a debut project for the company in the state of Kerala and was awarded using an ‘e-tendering’ process. Both the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and the events themselves were held at the Greenfield Stadium, recently completed by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Limited (IL&FS) is one of India's leading infrastructure development and finance companies.
The stadium PA system was configured in-the-round, using 24 stacks of JBL VerTec loudspeakers, configured as three line array elements and sub, as well as a field-of-play system using a JBL SRX712M monitor cabinet. Consistent coverage in the stands was determined by the use of various measurement devices and JBL’s line array calculator. The data acquired was fed into the Performance Manager file that manages all of the loudspeaker systems. The PA system was powered by Crown ITech-HD12000 amplifiers for the main system and ITech-HD4X3500 for all VIP and monitor systems.
Sound.Com has pioneered the use of redundant systems in India, and managed the primary audio sources as AES digital feeds. An analogue signal from Dolby/Lake processors acted as a backup, and a secret analogue drive line as the tertiary back-up system. The Dolby/Lake processors served two purposes, serving as a switcher from AES to analogue in case of problems with the digital network and also to convert AES audio to analogue wherever needed.
Audio infrastructure
The heart of the digital audio transport system was an Optocore fibre-optic installation, using six nodes across the stadium in a closed ring. Sound.Com ran an Optocore node to the north, south, east and west of the stadium, as well as a FOH node and monitor node. This handled all audio deliverables, with the closed loop ring providing cable redundancy. With further redundancy offered by dual power supplies in the mixing consoles and other devices, even a power outage could not interrupt the broadcast or control systems.
Audio for the VIP podium and athletes’ oath were routed from Optocore X6R-FX devices at the west node to the Soundcraft Vi6 console that served as the main mixing console, while the Yamaha CL5 was used to mix all the protocol events.
Sufficient back up planning is an integral part of large-scale audio production, and the team ensured that every speech microphone was paired with a wireless back-up system – for example, although the VIP tribune was routed to the Optocore system, a Shure UR3 plug-on transmitter provided a back-up. Likewise, the athletes’ oath Shure SM58 wired mic was backed up by a wireless Shure UR2 with an SM58 capsule.
The core audio team fielded by Sound.Com comprised Sunil Karanjikar as Chief Systems Engineer and Warren D’Souza as Audio Director. Both have extensive experience of sports ceremonies audio and special events in the Indian sub-continent. ‘We can only work with certain people on such projects,’ says D’Souza, founder and MD of Sound.Com. ‘As much as we have designed robust systems, we have learnt how to train our Jedi’s to take key positions.
‘Raghu Ramankutty served as the replay engineer for the event, and his knowledge of the local language was an advantage. Mark Thomas, the mix engineer manned the Soundcraft Vi6 and handled all the protocol and cultural events. Raghu doubled up mixing for the cultural events. Rising to the unforeseen situations, Sunil oversaw all the systems in the field of play. My focus was completely on VIP and oath microphones. Raghu had to eventually mix all the protocol events that consisted of army bands of various regiments and in that short span, we wired the CL5 racks through Dante via our HP Procurve switches that also serve as our overall networking control. This allowed Raghu to mix on the CL5, as three pairs of hands were required for the ceremony. One thing that makes me very proud is that as a team we have not only built robust networks but we have also complemented them well with skill sets that only gets better with every passing event.’
On the radio
For an event of this scale, robust wireless transmission is crucial and was required to operate over extended distances. Its failure can just destroy an entire show. Using WinRadio systems, the team scanned the entire site for interference and then allocated suitable frequencies to the radio microphones.
In-ear monitoring use is another challenge in stadia – IEM systems are often overestimated and expected to work equally well when ‘dry’ tested and fitted to a human body. Operation can fall by a factor of a third, however. Use of suitable combiners, helical antenna and short cable lengths are all neccessary but often leave systems unable to cover the distances involved. For the games, however, the Sound.Com team’s knowledge of RF application engineering techniques over various demographics in India and abroad saw them through. The main stage also had mirrored FOH receivers as backup, in case the main receivers encountered reception problems.
‘Our contingencies drive the rookies who join us nuts,’ D’Souza says. ‘Why we need to be so particular about reliability? It’s just that we have made it a habit. We also make them understand that we are not going out of our way to do this, we just are conducting ourselves in the most normal and professional standards set internally.
‘At the end of the day, one can only feel satisfied with a job well done. Every job that has been done at Sound.Com is for posterity and enough to motivate us to scale higher. At the end of the show, nothing sounds better than the National Anthem resounding through the sound system in the stadium at the end of a closing ceremony. That feeling is priceless.’
More: www.online-sound.com
More: www.optocore.com
More: www.jbpro.com
More: www.crownaudio.com
More: www.soundcraft.com
More: www.shure.com
