Kalachakra 2015, A great learning experience

Being the preffered Audio company of choice we had the privilige to work at KALACHAKRA - a international religious  Buddhist event hosted by His Holiness the Dalai Lama . This festival was was hosted recently in Ladakh in the Himalayas  nearly 5,000m above sea level, making it a milestone in our history.

High quality sound was of utmost importance and hence finding a right microphone that would project his Holiness’ voice to the nearly 200,000 followers who attended was quite challenging.

‘One of the biggest challenges for us was that the Dalai Lama would speak for about five hours every day, so we needed a high quality microphone that would provide excellent gain before feedback, excellent off axis rejection and a low noise floor,” -Felix Remedios, Managing Director, Reynold’s Sound & Lighting Services.

‘In addition to needing perfect reliability, given only one mic for a large audience, there was a high level of stage monitoring required for the surrounding monks.’

‘I had contacted my friend and colleague Ron Lorman in New York, and explained that I was unsure that my previous mics would have the amount of gain that I needed. We additionally discussed the unique monitor needs for this event, as it was mandatory that the source element provided a flat response with

substantial rear rejection,’ continues Mr.Remedios.

In addition to this, the loudspeaker of choice was a wide- ranging Meyer Sound solution consisting of 44 Milo, 32 Mica, 24 MSL-4 and 20 CQ cabinets.

Our audio team was led by sound engineer Suresh J, succesfully put the mics to the test for the first time.

‘We chose to use the cardioid version of the mic for the Kalachakra,’ notes Mr.Remedios. ‘We had never used DPA mics before, but one of the first things we noticed was that there was no colouration in the signal. His Holiness’ voice sounded extremely natural and transparent, and we were able to get the gain levels we wanted.  The DPA Dfine is certainly a quantum leap from what we are used to, both in signal levels from the mic and overall quality of the design.’

The final outcome was certainally quiet successful, with  a lot of pleased audiences as well as and most impostantly the Dalai Lama and his media team.

Armin Van Buren @ Sunburn Hyderabad

Long standing stalwart of the Live Entertainment Industry in India, Rental House - Reynold's 

Sound and Lighting Services Pvt. Ltd., has been providing Percept's Sunburn (EDM festival) with 

technical assistance ever since the Percept started. With multiple city tours with major international 

EDM artists Sunburn has been one of the most consistent festival which has been attracting 

thousands.

 The latest show Armin Van Buren in Hyderabad, was no exception and Reynolds deployed a 

sizeable inventory to ensure the success of this gig. With over (total no. of people who attended 

this gig) Reynolds played a pivotal role by providing complete sound and lighting set up.This 

included  a total Fabrication's 60x40 roofing truss enabled the lighting and LED rigs “ We had to 

make sure the lights were rigged in the right place and the truss trimmed to the specs and of 

course with a great crew we created some cutting edge lighting for the festival”- Vijay, Lighting 

engineer, Reynolds.

For reinforcement of the PA towers, we use scaffolding from Layher, Germany. Being a Meyer 

Sound vendor for eons, the main PA consisted of 32 x Meyer Sound MILO Line Array speakers in 

a typical LR configuration. The low frequency element was complemented by 32 x 700HP 

subwoofers. 

"We have designed the subwoofer array such that it forms a arc. Although digitally created, this 

array ensures a much more even coverage in the horizontal plane. Considering the venue size 

and dimensions, this design would suit us better, in our goal of delivering the ultimate listening 

experience to our audience.'' - Sohel Dantes, Sound Engineer, Reynold's

For centre-fill we used 8 x CQ2 point-source boxes and the out-hangs were supplemented with 4 x 

MSL4. For the VIP/MIP sections, we used 4 x MSL4 with another 2x700HP Subwoofers to 

enhance the experience there. We had a tiny delay stack of 4 x MSL4 to enable intelligibility right 

till the back.

The DJ console was tooled to the T. 6 x MICA Line Array boxes ground-stacked on 700HP 

subwoofers, ensured the DJ's monitoring experience was impeccable. Besides, to their disposal, 

were 4 x Pioneer CDJ2000 NXS and 1 x Pioneer DJM2000. 

The front of house console was an AVID SC48, but the most interesting nuance of this setup was 

the motion control system that Armin and his crew were travelling with. Networking everything from 

the DJ booth, to the sound, lighting and Video consoles enabled the motion control system to run 

flawlessly via     time-code.