Glade at Glastonbury
The Glade Area at Glastonbury Festival has become known as the destination for all those who love alternative underground dance music, leftfield and experimental sounds, dub and reggae. Originally spawned from the Avalon Field back in the late 1990's and expanding into its own stand-alone festival at one point, situated right in the centre of the festival among a small triangle of poplar trees and mature woodland tucked below the embankment, lies the Glade Area. As well playing host to the Glade Stage, there is the Spaceport Stage, Glade Lounge, Lovebullets Stage and The Spike, an enchanted space by the Glade Cafe that’s effectively a sound system in the trees.
"We’ve been long time fans of both MC² amps and XTA processing, so to finally get our hands on a product than combines both with so many new innovations is just brilliant! There’s been no compromise at all, in fact the amps are the best sounding I have heard from the MC stable."
Enveloped In An Ever Changing Music Bubble
The plan for the Glade at Glastonbury 2017 was an innovative, fully-featured, multi-channel surround sound system designed to envelop you no matter where you stood. The idea was to create a space where you could just dance the night away, totally immersed in a music bubble without turning to face a stage or stand in front of a speaker to feel the vibe. The system would be designed to work with multi-channel audio files, as well as be able to create six channels of audio from a single stereo feed.
Funktion One and Sound Services Ltd worked together to realise this six-point surround sound solution. A network needed to be set up in order to handle all the speaker processing, including the tricky alignment and phasing that a six point surround system required and so a combination of MC² Delta and XTA’s APA amplifiers were used to control and power the entire system.
Delta's Delights
MC² Delta amplifiers were used front and centre as a break in to the Dante network and on duty for mid/top of the “front stage” system, with aux outputs on one Delta 80-DSP being used to configure and control the active sub-bass cabs. Additional bass duties and the “remote” four surround stacks were each powered by a local APA, picking up Dante audio from the network. Through fully embracing the Dante audio networking, being able to combine the latest AudioCore “Amped Edition” and DeltaDirect on the iPad, the main system crossover settings could be sent to all amps on a wired Ethernet or wireless connection. It was then a quick switch to wireless control with DeltaDirect to fine tune with the added advantage of moving freely about the entire audience space.
Bringing The Phenomenal Vibes
Tony Andrews, founder of Funktion One:
"The new Dante enabled Delta amps sound incredible, and it’s made doing the ambisonics the most straightforward it’s ever been. With six positions to deal with, all with multiple individual drive channels, and separate input and crossover set-ups to consider, what could have been a nightmare became very easy. These amps make it very easy – the best it’s ever been in this regard."
