Co-hosted by Radio RPR1, the Rheinland-Pfalz Open Air 2010 festival in Southwest Germany  attracted an audience in excess of 50,000 people to see a Bee-Gees special headlined by Robin Gibb, with support from Australian singer/songwriter Gabriella Cilmi.

With a strong reputation for large-scale sound systems, Trier-based Pro Musik took on the sound reinforcement duties and explored some new system design techniques, inspired by Pro Musik's Elmar Hubert.

Pro Musik has been an enthusiastic supporter of Nexo systems for more than 10 years, stocking Geo-T and S12 line array modules as well as Alpha and PS R2 Series cabinets. For the Rheinland-Pfalz Open Air event, the company used 23-box hangs of Geo-T for its main stage PA, with Geo-S12 for outhangs and delays. New in Mainz was the whole approach to subbass Twenty-four of Nexo’s new RS18 subs were set up in omni mode as a horizontal array, with a pair of subs at each of 12 evenly-spaced positions at the front of the stage. The subs were driven by 24 mono-bridged Camco Vortex 6 amplifiers, delivering an impressive power output of 158.4kW.

‘We didn’t need this amount of sub-bass for the gig in terms of level but there were two reasons for designing and amping the system in this way,’ says Pro Musik’s Elmar Hubert. ‘Firstly, I wanted the horizontal dispersion over a very wide audience area, which was necessary in this venue. Secondly, it was a great chance to test what these new RS18 subs are able to handle, so that we are prepared for bigger applications that are coming up in the near future. I had the support of Reinhard Steger and Stuart Kerrison from Nexo so the quality of the system was assured.’

Planned and set up by Pro Musik technicians Roland Pfeiffers and Michael Wirth, monitored and controlled via an EtherSound monitor network, the system offered the mix engineers a lot to play with.

According Reinhard Steger of Camco, Nexo’s distributor in Germany, the new subs ‘eclipsesall the outstanding and satisfying characteristics I’ve heard from the RS18 since its launch. Nothing negative appeared, nothing positive was lost – they sounded really formidable’.

For stage monitoring, there were 16 Nexo PS15 R2 wedges, with Nexo Alpha cabinets for side fill. The drum monitor comprised PS15R2 and Nexo RS15 speakers. Control and amplification came from NX242-ES4, Camco Vortex 6 and NXAmp 4x4 systems.

More: www.camcoaudio.com