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Tucked away in the forests of the Ruhr area of Germany is a former quarry, reborn since the 1950s as a tourist resort. The quarry diggings now form the Blauer See (Blue Lake), a centre for water sports and fishing, while the surrounding woodland features a huge diversity of activities, from a playground and miniature railway to nature trails, workshops, teamwork training courses, live music and theatre.
Located just north east of the city of Ratingen, for the past nine years Blauer See has hosted a yearly DJ event, with some of Germany's leading exponents of the genre spinning the decks for thousands of enthusiastic fans.
Organised by Tribehouse Neuss, this year's event took place on 30th July and featured an eight hour headline slot by Sven Väth, ably supported by Turntablerocker, Loco Dice, Tobias Becker and Patrick Peiki.
With it being an outdoor gig, it was of paramount importance that the loudspeaker system should produce consistent results in all conditions and Turbosound's Aspect® system provided the ideal balance of power and
reliability.
Carsten Eichstädt of Westphalia-based CE-Veranstaltungstechnik was one of the first Turbosound Aspect users in Germany. For this event he joined forces with Sascha Schmitz of BLL Veranstaltungstechnik, another German Aspect user, to provide a large system suitable for broadcasting the bass-heavy beats to an audience of 10,000, without losing any of the music's power.
Together they provided an extensive Aspect system, with further Turbosound cabinets used for fill and monitoring.
The system comprised nine Aspect TA-880H cabinets per side, flown three wide by three deep in 8m high PA towers. Beneath the towers were eight TSW-718 subs per side, stacked two wide and four high, with 16 Aspect
TA-880Ls stacked in three blocks under the stage. Eight QLight™ TQ-445DPs were used as infills, with Floodlight
used as DJ monitors.
"The performance from the system was really good, The sound was warm, clear, very punchy and very loud - somewhere between living room hi-fi and dirty rock`n roll. Every member of the audience, wherever they were, could feel the bass," says Carsten Eichstädt
The weather for the event was a mixture of sun, clouds and rain, with a steady breeze - none of which caused a
problem for the PA.
"The wind wasn't a problem for this system, unlike the line arrays we have used in previous years," Carsten continues. "It was easy to fly and it didn't need much truck space - we only needed one 7.49t vehicle for the entire sound rig."
Headliner Sven Väth and organisers Tribehouse pronounced themselves very impressed with the audio quality of the Aspect system, Tribehouse even going as far to say that it was one of the best sounds they'd ever had at a event.
As well as the superior sound quality, it is the sheer versatility of the Aspect system that impresses Carsten Eichstädt most. "For me, the best thing about Aspect is its flexibility," he says. "I can do everything from small club gigs with classic music to big open air shows with techno or heavy metal. This system will do all jobs with 100% audio quality." |