The 2012 outing for the Rock in Japan saw Martin Audio repeating its part Japan’s largest music festival.
Promoted by music magazine publisher Rockin’On, and an annual event since the year 2,000, the three-day festival showcases more than 100 of Japan’s leading rock bands and artists, to perform in front of a crowd of around 60,000 daily at the Hitachi Seaside Park in Hitachinaka.
Rental company, MSI Japan, which provides front line sound reinforcement for the event every year, now has the luxury of fielding the MLA for the largest of the six stages (Grass Stage) – specified by company president, Shuzo Fujii.
The promoter had previously fielded an MLA system on the second stage (Lake Stage) at last year’s festival, where it enjoyed its Japanese debut. Such was its success that they were happy to endorse its promotion to main stage this year.
A procession of headline artists, including Princess Princess, Yuki, KREVA, Perfume, Spitz, The Hiatus and Acidman all played through the MLA system, with their respective sound engineers all commenting on the sonic quality and characteristics. With Martin Audio Technical Training Manager, Martyn ‘Ferrit’ Rowe, optimising last year’s sound, the system tech duties this year passed to Dave Sugawara.
For MSI Japan the challenge was about throwing the sound 200m without a delay tower, which the 19 MLA elements per side (plus one MLD per side), managed effortlessly. This was further boosted by the LF extension offered by two hangs of six MLX subs and a further 11 on stage.
Reflecting on a successful weekend (with further MLA enclosures from MSI Japan also on duty at another baseball stadium show, Osamu ‘Sam’ Yamashita from Audiobrains, Martin Audio’s Japan distributor, stated: ‘The beauty of MLA was that it maintained its consistency right across the 200m throw distance. But at 300m there is a parking lot – and the system was optimised so that the sound could hardly be heard at all from there.’
See also:
Birds and Brains give Martin Audio good Asia showing (2011 Rock in Japan)
More: www.martin-audio.com
More: www.audiobrains.com
