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Coda Audio Services use M3D for Singapore National Day Parade
Coda
Audio Services has provided its brand new Meyer Sound M3D Line Array
Loudspeaker System for Singapore's prestigious National Day Parade (NDP),
celebrating the 37th anniversary of Singapore's independence on august 9.
This was the first time a new loudspeaker brand has been used on the event
for more than a decade. Held
at the 60,000 capacity Singapore National Stadium, the NDP features
performances from military and school bands, a 400-piece drum ensemble,
displays by the Singapore Armed Forces including free fall parachute
displays, tower rappelling, vehicle displays, a presidential gun salute
and a state flag fly-past as well as dancing and solo vocalists. Most of
the show is pre-recorded although there are also live elements such as
marching bands, military pipes and drums and MCs. Sydney-based
Coda, which has set up a Singapore office to handle NDP commitments and
other new business in the region, was contracted by Singaporean company
Pico to provide the equipment for the event. Coda worked alongside Choong
Yip Weng, general manager of Visualspace Tech International, a company set
up by Pico to oversee all the lighting and sound equipment and screens
used for the NDP. The
event was a great opportunity for Coda to get to grips with its 16-cabinet
M3D system, supplied by Meyer Sound Australia. "It was the ideal
choice for the job, and worked like a charm straight out of the box,"
says Coda director Philip Murphy, who made the pioneering decision to use
the M3D cabinets as a distributed, rather than a line array system for the
purposes of this particular job. "They're a full range cabinet with a
90 degree horizontal pattern and a very tight vertical pattern of
approximately 10 degrees, which allowed us the flexibility of using them
in this way. "The
existing system design for NDP at Singapore's National Stadium had been
drawn up 10 years ago and hadn't been varied, as it was a situation that
the Defence Science Technology Agency (DSTA), which sets the requirements
for all technical equipment used on NDP, was comfortable with. Previously
they'd used about 120 twelve inch and horn type boxes, but what we offered
them was a more sophisticated, full range design providing smoother
coverage, far greater headroom and with less to go wrong, and they were
convinced by the idea of a failsafe system. Once I'd met the creative
team, who were fortunately very open to new ideas and prepared to make a
few changes that needed newer technology to implement, we realised we had
to change the spec considerably, and that's when we started looking at
options such as the M3Ds." Four
sound towers, two at each end of the stadium, were each fitted with three
M3D and one M3D-Sub Directional Subwoofer in two configurations - two M3Ds
for the longer throw to the corners and an M3D with an M3D-Sub for the end
zones. Four further M3Ds and four more M3D-Subs provided a stereo system
for the VIP enclosure along the western grandstand side, where Singapore's
President S R Nathan and Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong took pride of place.
Additionally, 28 Meyer MSL-4 Horn-Loaded Long-Throw Loudspeakers were used
around the stadium for field foldback and as effects speakers on the
towers. These were used to provide some subliminal panning of metallic
sounds during some of the pre show music as the audience arrived to evoke
a sense of the sound travelling around the stadium, and also to augment
the recorded program with live Chinese, Western, Indian and Malay drummers
positioned in the audience at the four corners of the stadium. This was to
pull the focus of the audience towards the zones in which the music was
being played during the show. A pair of CQ-1 Wide Coverage Main
Loudspeakers provided cues for the parade commanders. Coda
worked on the system design with Meyer's Greg Linhares using Meyer Sound
MAPP Online(tm) (Multipurpose Acoustical Prediction Program). The system
was monitored using Meyer's RMS(tm) Remote Monitoring System which the
DSTA particularly appreciated. "It meant that they could observe what
was happening, and see that all the speakers were functioning properly at
all times," says Murphy. "It was also invaluable in that we were
able to monitor speakers that we couldn't gain access to on the field. We
could also check the temperatures of the speakers, which were out in the
hot sun for 12 hours a day. The M3Ds stood up amazingly in the climatic
conditions, which also included torrential rain." Due
to the stringent regulations surrounding NDP, Coda started setting up the
system three months before the August event. This meant that in addition
to six combined rehearsals and numerous component rehearsals, Coda was
also able to put the M3D system through its paces on two preliminary
events at the stadium, Singapore Armed Forces Day Parade on July 1 and the
Opening Ceremony for the Singapore Youth Festival on July 6. Proceedings
were somewhat thwarted when a fire broke out in the backstage control room
three days before the final full NDP rehearsal. Among the equipment to be
destroyed were eight Meyer USM1 stage monitors which were replaced with
UM-1P Narrow Coverage Stage Monitors hired from Meyer's Singapore
distributor Quebec Leisure. The Coda team worked around the clock for
three days to track down and replace the destroyed equipment and rebuild
the control room, and were finished just in time for the rehearsal. Despite
flood and fire, the Coda team, which as well as Murphy and his partner
Michael Wilkie included Senior Systems Engineer Brad Law, Systems Engineer
Tim O'Neill and Monitor Engineer Andy McKeown, together with Front of
House Engineer Jauhari Rais, delivered a new level of sound quality for
Singapore's NDP. "In terms of fidelity and punch we've never had
sound like this at our NDP," says Koh Peng Kin, Deputy Chairman, PA
and Sound Committee of the DSTA. "We've received so many positive
comments about the sound." Coda Audio Services Singapore Pte Ltd can be contacted at 37 Tannery Lane, #02-04, Tannery House, Singapore 347790, Tel: +65 6749 8890 Coda
Audio Service (Australia) Unit 16, 888 Bourke St |
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