The
wedding ceremony was held in the former Stock Exchange in Amsterdam,
an architectural masterpiece built around 1900 by Dutch architect
Berlage. Eight hundred royal guests, political leaders (including
Nelson Mandela) and
friends had been invited to witness what some commentators already
called ‘the wedding of the century.’ Duran Audio
had the honour of being part of it.
The story begins in December 2001,
when Duran Audio received a request from the city of Amsterdam
to evaluate the sound system design for THE wedding, which
was to be kept under strict official secrecy. The planned
system was a distributed design with a large number of small
loudspeaker columns on stands, it was obvious that this was
not an ideal solution, acoustically or aesthetically. This
was clear to everyone, but could Duran Audio offer an alternative?
They certainly could! And the Amsterdam civil servants would
even be able to judge the alternative for themselves, if
they’d like to take the opportunity,
because coincidentally one of Holland’s most respected
theatrical performers, Herman van Veen, would be giving his
Christmas Concert in the main hall of the Stock Exchange, using
the very Intellivox PA-system that could solve the problem.
The rest was a matter of ‘veni, vidi, vici’. The
two civil servants that came, hardly even noticed the ‘invisible’ loudspeakers,
and were convinced that the sound would fit the wedding perfectly!
 The Team
Apart from Duran
Audio, who were responsible for the sound system design and
calculations, two engineers played an important part in the
project. The first was system engineer Martijn van Campen of
Dutch rental company Vanderlinden Geluid (standing at the right
of Duran Audio’s President
Gerrit Duran), the second was FOH-engineer Piet Nieuwint
(at the left). During their careers both have had previous
experience of working with Intellivox for live sound reinforcement.
Vanderlinden Geluid has been using Intellivox ever since
the system was introduced, applications have varied and include
theatrical shows and corporate events in churches, halls
and theatres. Front of house engineer Piet Nieuwint is a
longtime sound engineer and a teacher at the Royal Conservatory
in The Hague. Nieuwint in fact is the very first engineer
to have used the
highly directional DDC loudspeaker technology in a live event,
the ‘football musical’ Abe, performed in 1995 in
an outdoor stadium for 11.000 spectators. Nieuwint also used
the technology for opera and classical music, augmenting the
arrays with conventional loudspeakers or subwoofers whenever
necessary.
The Venue
Dutch architect Berlage is known for his spacious buildings
with bare brick walls and hard surfaces, and the former Stock
Exchange is no exception. The main hall is 45 m deep, 25
m wide and the ceiling is at least 20 m high. Any conventional
left/ right sound system will generate massive reverberation,
and deteriorate the direct to reverberant ratio, which is
so crucial to speech intelligibility. Distributing the loudspeakers
can bring direct sound to every seat, but there will be cabling
and stands everywhere, and a large number of seats will be
covered by multiple loudspeakers - not improving intelligibility
either. Another conventional option could be flying a loudspeaker
cluster, but because of sightlines these would have to be
hung at a height of 10 to 12 meters, far too high for an
acceptable direct to reverberant signal ratio. Considering
all options, the best solution to provide optimum speech
intelligibility and a clean audio signal for the broadcasters,
would be a straightforward left/right system with a very
narrow vertical dispersion. And this is exactly what happened.
 The main system
The main PA consisted of two
Intellivox-6c (now known as the DC500) arrays, mounted on the
left and right walls of the ‘Schrijfkamer’,
directly behind the position from where Amsterdam Mayor Job
Cohen was delivering his speech. With these two arrays (5 m
high, 13 cm wide, 10 cm deep), the entire audience plane, 800
seats in total stretching back 45 metres, was covered inspite
of the fact that the microphones were a few meters in front
of the loudspeakers! The calculations for the system were carried
out by Duran Audio’s Dr. Evert Start, the vertical dispersion
being a mere 5o. With the arrays mounted 50 cm above ground
level, and the acoustical centre 75 cm above this point, the
actually perceived sound source was at the hearing level of
1.25 m. Front of house engineer Piet Nieuwint: “The big
advantage of these arrays is that they are highly directional
so you are not creating as many reflections and reverberation
as with a conventional system. In this hall you would normally
be drowning in reverb, and with a distributed system you loose
all directional orientation. Instead, with these arrays the
sound originates from the front without creating any feedback
problems. Our main concern was the fact that the microphones
were in front of the loudspeakers, but fortunately those for
the Mayor were somewhat in the shadow, while the microphones
for the wedding couple would only be open for a short time.
By carefully choosing and positioning the microphones and equalizing
the system we were able to reach even the last rows without
a problem”. The main system was augmented by two Intellivox-1b
(DC 115) loudspeakers for the small group of witnesses at the
wedding, seated apart outside the coverage of the main PA.
Another pair of 1b’s (DC 115) was aimed towards the press
area on the opposite balcony, these were time-aligned with
the 6c’s (DC 500).
|
| The Intellivox-6c in matching colour
mounted on the sidewall of the 'Schrijfkamer' |
An important issue during the whole
operation was the audio signal that had to be broadcasted
live. United Broadcast Facilities, responsible for the television
broadcasting, was extremely pleased with the results, as
they were able to pick up a very clean audio signal. Martijn
van Campen: “When I told
a sound engineer of United Broadcast Facilities that we were
all set up, he asked me ‘but where are the loudspeakers?’.
Nobody even noticed they were there”.
Most important words
The rest of the system
consisted of no more than four microphones, one wireless microphone,
graphic EQ’s, a small DDAdesk
(plus spare desk) and cabling. Like the loudspeakers, the choice
of microphones was equally delicate, and live sound engineers,
broadcasters, set designers, as well as members of the Royal
Party were involved. The Neumann KM100 with (cardioid) 50-capsule
was selected for the Mayor, both because of its sound and its
good looks. The honor of unobtrusively picking up the most
important words of the whole ceremony, went to two AKG C747
hypercardioids, hanging 50 cm above the wedding couple. They
were held in position by the microphone cable and a thin nylon
thread. Of both the Neumann and AKG microphones only one was
actually used, the other served as a back up, as did the wireless
system with it’s small DPA 4060. Each microphone had
its own 31-band graphic EQ. This small sound system was thoroughly
tested and sound-checked, and worked perfectly during the wedding
ceremony. None of the back up equipment was needed, every word
came through loud and clear, and in particular the word that
millions had been waiting for: “Ja”.
Which is of course Dutch for: “Yes, I Do”.
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