Yamaha CL5, in celebration of German reunification

The past days 2 y 3 October the city of Munich hosted the celebration of the German National Day, el ‘Day of German Unity’ o German Reunification Day, which commemorates the anniversary of the reunification of the German country since 1990. To provide audio for such an important event, a Yamaha CL5 digital mixing console was chosen.

Every year, A German city hosts a grand celebration to commemorate the momentous events that occurred in November 1989, when the process that brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany began. This year, The Bavarian city of Munich hosted this event and a system was contracted Yamaha CL5 to deliver high quality sound over a large area.

El festival ‘Day of German Unity’ (German Reunification Day) The two-day event hosted a series of events throughout 1,3 kilometers of Ludwigstrasse street in which more than 400.000 people were able to enjoy a wide range of entertainment. The size of this space meant that installing a proper audio system was a big challenge..

The audio specialist Neumann & Müller was in charge of managing the sound requirements of the location and, as one of the first to invest in the Yamaha CL series and having used it very successfully in the Euro Cup matches 2012 from this summer, the project director of this German company, Johannes Pippig, knew it could provide the coverage and versatility needed in a straightforward manner.

“We have had to provide continuous coverage, both for announcements safely and for the big closing event. Cover the sound on a street with a length of 1,3 km was a challenge, but using a CL system with a Dante network made it much easier than with any other system”, Pippig pointed out.

Dante networking technology

They were installed 2 Dante networks with Gigabit switches along the entire Ludwigstrasse (the second only for complete redundancy). In addition, were distributed 6 Yamaha Rio3224-D I/O units throughout the network, which took the mic and line inputs from nine separate performance platforms and included stages at each end of the Ludwigstrasse.

All signals were sent over the Dante network to a single CL5 digital console, with the mixes shipped to a total of 19 Separate speaker arrays across Rio units. With these positioned along Ludwigstrasse, this meant that PA feeds could be made using analogue wiring from the nearest I/O unit, but no noise problems. The Rios were also used to send audio to the wired and wireless in-ear monitoring systems used by all actors..

“Operationally, the combination of CL and Dante series was fantastic. We use the Dante controller to configure the system, that recognized Yamaha devices instantly. After creating the network, worked perfectly and completely discreetly. The only major problem we had with the system setup was having to maintain all the escape routes, Side entrances and other clear roads. We achieved this by using cable jumpers and it worked very well”, Pippig added.

Audio combination, video and lights

Plus live performances by rock band Karat and other artists, the multimedia show 40 minutes that mark the ‘Day of German Unity’’ It had pyrotechnics, laser, lighting and video projections in eight different locations, all managed by a Watchout system Dataton, which also supplied the audio playback and voice-over ‘voice of god’ pre-recorded for CL5 console performance. One of the problems with production mixing was having a single mix position for what was actually a long stage of production. 1,3 km. Here, the 'old technology’ interconnected perfectly with the 'new technology’ to provide an effective solution.

“The CL5 was on the second floor of one of the buildings bordering Ludwigstrasse and we couldn't hear all the PA systems well enough to make a good mix.. But it was the only possible position in which we could see a reasonable stretch of the street.. Our original plan was to have a number of Wi-Fi access points and use the StageMix iPad app to control the CL5. The problem with this was that the mixing engineer and I would have had to be in several places at the same time. For this reason, We place audio technicians in various locations along the street, who were in radio contact with us at the console. Actually, This worked very well and we were very happy with what we achieved”, added Pippig.

In general, The festival was a great success and, being the first to have a Yamaha CL system, Pippig was very impressed with the difference it made. “At an event with a large area to cover, the system was a very practical solution, easy and reliable. Everything worked perfectly throughout the event and we hope to overcome large-scale challenges with it in the future.”, concludes.