For a sound company, there are few scenarios
more challenging than the ambient noise of an aircraft or two. That probably makes the guys from Continental Air Show Productions either masochists or experts (they’d probably say a little
of both). The company spends their days pumping it up loud enough to be heard over the roar of several dozen of the loudest military jets on the planet. To get louder than this stuff, you’ve
got to be good, and these guys have proven their stuff over forty years in the industry.
CASP travels the country with a powerful sound system that breathes life into some of the most spectacular air shows around. The main rig comprises two Community RSH462 loudspeakers and 24 more R.25 loudspeakers, along with six R.5 subwoofers. “We mount the RSH462s on man-lifts, on all-terrain forklifts, and even on scaffolding, depending on what’s available,” says CASP’s Dave Olmstead. “We mount the R.25s on tripods about seven feet up, to cover the areas where VIP and sponsors are hosted.”
Aside from the near deafening ambient noise, the other challenge is the sheer size of the areas needing coverage. The purpose-built distributed system can cover nearly a full mile of show line. Using a pair of 5.8GHz wireless remote systems, the loudspeakers can be placed anywhere along the ramp where extra coverage is needed. “In air shows, the front line coverage is easy,” says Olmstead. “It’s the back of the airport ramp that’s the challenge. That’s where the RSH462s really shine.”
In addition to the typical festival needs of public address, paging parents for lost children and other announcements, each act usually provides a music track to accompany the narration. Suffice
it to say, it’s a fair bet it won’t be an easy listening selection. “We’re usually cranking everything from military music to hard-edged hip hop or metal,” says Olmstead. “There’s
also always a need to ‘go live to the cockpit’ so the pilot can talk to the crowd over VHF radio.”
For the men of CASP, Community loudspeakers deliver the goods. “I’ve been working with live sound and distributed systems for more than twenty years, and Community is the only product I’ve used that can adapt to the more discerning ear of today’s listening public while still maintaining the ruggedness required for outdoor use,” Olmstead concludes. “Without a doubt, we push these speakers to their limit during shows. We’ve set them up and taken them down more than twenty times this season alone, not to mention bouncing them down the road in a trailer from Brunswick, Maine to Spokane, Washington, and they continue to impress our clients every time we power them up. With the addition of the RSH462 to our arsenal, we get to hear every soundman’s favorite complaint: ‘can you turn it down a bit?’”
