Martin Audio, Chauvet Professional and Allen & Heath suit up for Namibia’s Deep Dive Seafood & Wine Festival

The second edition of the Deep Dive Seafood & Wine Festival took place in Namibia in the middle of September with the Plug & Play Events Solution team eagerly taking their newly acquired Martin Audio WPC Line Array System through its strident paces at the event. The Deep Dive event took the honours as Plug & Play’s largest deployment to date and saw acts such as Gloria Del Mar, Samson Brothers, Jacob & Taylor, Watershed and many more grace the stage to entertain the guests who showed up in numbers to celebrate.

The festival attendees got to experience the full might of a 6-a-side Martin Audio WPC system. The WPC is a 3-way bi-amp, 2 x 10” compact line array designed for Touring sound reinforcement for small and medium-sized venues, as well as fixed installations. The Wavefront Precision Range all utilize Martin Audio’s DISPLAY software to render the speaker configuration in the operating environment so the amplifiers can drive the boxes to deliver consistent coverage to the space, reduce set-up time and eliminates trial-and-error.

The 12 WPC boxes were partnered with 6 of Martin Audio’s SXH218 subwoofers. The SXH218 is a Dual 18″ Passive Hybrid® Horn/Reflex Subwoofer, that is the ideal partner for WPS, WPC and WPL line arrays where maximum low-frequency output is required. These horn-loaded subwoofers are perfect for Outdoor festivals and can be powered by either a single channel of a Martin Audio iK42 4-channel amplifier or via a bridged pair if the maximum output is required.

To power the WPC and SXH218 boxes Plug & Play matched the boxes with 9 of Martin Audio’s iKON iK42 amplifiers. These four-channel 20,000W Class D Power Amplifiers feature state-of-the-art DSP and network control and monitoring via Martin Audios VU-NET™ software. The iK42 also employs comprehensive protection functions to maintain safe operating conditions of both the amplifier and the loudspeakers driven in a wide range of conditions.

For monitors, 8 Martin Audio Blackline XP12s and 1 Blackline XP118 were used on stage. The Blackline XP12 is a 12″ Active Loudspeaker with 1300W of Class D amplification on tap, Onboard DSP control, a three-channel mixer, and Bluetooth control. With a user-rotatable 80° x 50° HF horn, it can be adjusted to push tighter coverage to the artists on the stage and keep the stage clean. The Blackline 18″ Active Subwoofer, the XP118 was utilized for bass reinforcement for the drummer.

At the Front of House position, the Plug & Play team set up the Allen & Heath SQ7 Digital Mixer paired with a GX4816 stage box. Equipped with Allen & Heath’s signature XCVI 96kHz FPGA engine, the SQ7 features 33 faders with 6 layers and 32 local channels. With its 3-tier, all-metal chassis with extruded aluminium light bar, the SQ is always show-ready and tour-tough.  Utilized with the GX4816 expander the Plug & Play team have the full 96kHz dLive experience with 48 XLR inputs all with independent Phantom Power LED indicators, and 16 XLR outputs. Compatible with the Allen & Heath SQ, Avantis, dLive and AHM series this 48 out / 16 in audio expander was a crucial part of the FOH set-up.

For Monitoring, the smaller SQ5 was deployed with 16 local Onboard Preamps, 12 Line outputs with control via 17 faders and 6 layers. SQ mixers all feature a 7” high-resolution touchscreen, assignable SoftKeys and an integrated USB interface which allows for multitrack recording and playback.

In a lineup of outstanding Chauvet Professional fixtures, The PXL Curve 12 was the biggest eyecatcher of the evening. The NEW COLORado PXL Curve 12 is a fully pixel-mappable motorized IP65-rated RGBW LED batten with individual control of zoom, tilt and colour across twelve independent heads. The COLORado PXL Curve 12 has been an absolute hit everywhere it has been used. The IP65-rated 5-pin DMX and TCP/IP input/output ports make it truly an outdoor fixture suitable for all functions, from the Namibian deserts to the wet shores of Cape Town.

Special thanks to Plug & Play Event Solutions.