Headlined by Def Leppard, Kiss and Volbeat, this year’s Hellfest also saw Nexo’s STM loudspeaker system make its debut on both of the festival’s two main stages. The annual three-day event takes place near Nantes, France, where rental company Melpomen has provided the audio kit since its inception in 2006. With STM onboard this year, that meant more headroom and more control…

‘We have a very good relationship with the festival organisers, so when we explained that we needed STM because it is such a fantastic, powerful system, and it’s so easy to rig, they just took our word for it,’ says Melpo President, Thierry Tranchant, backstage during day one of the event.

‘We’ve designed it so that the maximum level of the system is 118dB, so we have a serious amount of headroom to play with.’

The headliners were actually coming through loud and clear at 104dB from FOH, 55m from the stage.

‘We’ve always had a great sound from Geo-T at Hellfest, but I have to say working with STM is quite a step up. Sonically, the HF and the mid frequencies are just perfect, and we now have an extremely solid and powerful low-end,’ he says. ‘The additional power, in fact, is so evident that we only need to use two-thirds of the amount of STM cabinets in comparison to what we would need if we were using Geo – that is really impressive.’

Hellfest uses two main stages located next to each other and performances‘flip-flop’ between them to ensure that the music is uninterrupted. The two PA systems effectively run as one, continuously. When a band was playing on main stage A, the B stage system dropped 6dB in level, and vice versa.

Both stages were equipped with identical STM systems, which were set up to run on 180Hz (bass to main) and 60Hz (S118 Subbass to B112 Bass) crossover frequencies. Each stage had a dedicated LR main hang of 15 STM M46 Main Modules and 15 STM B112 Bass Modules per side; and two stacks of 15 S118 Sub Modules in a cardioid configuration on the floor. This totalled 180 sets of STM. Amplification was handled by 20 Nexo Universal Amp Racks, each containing two NXAmp 4x4s, which Tranchant says are some of the best he’s ever worked with.

‘The power the NXAmps give out is more than enough, and in terms of reliability, they’re absolutely perfect,’ he confirms. ‘Also, the NXAmp’s power supply is particularly clean and there’s no pickup consumption.’

System design was achieved using Nexo’s NS-1 software package, and includes Geo-T side fills, Geo-S12 front fills and even Alpha cabinets on stage. ‘All systems are 100 per cent phase coherent, something Nexo has been working on for the past two years,’ says Stuart Kerrison, from the company’s Concert Sound Division. Completing the Nexo story, the distinctive 45ºN-12 monitors were on stage for the majority of the performers to use, although most of the headliners chose to use in-ears.

‘I used the 45ºN-12s two years ago with Iggy Pop, and even he thought they sounded really good, so I knew they must be the real deal,’ Tranchant says. ‘We’ve got 48 of them here for Hellfest and they’re working very well; the fact that you can configure them as you please is a major advantage when working in any festival environment.’

Melpomen’s team was led by crew chief David Prevost, with Cedric Bernard and Christophe Rousseau supervising FOH on Main Stage 1, and Samuel Biraies and Wilfrid Hubert on Main Stage 2.