Foothill Ranch, CA (March 19, 2021)—Renkus-Heinz has unveiled its new C Series CA/CX121M compact stage monitor.
Available in both passive (CX121M) and powered (CA121M) models, the single 12” stage monitor/multipurpose loudspeaker reportedly features identical horizontal and vertical off axis performance, aiming to provide greater freedom of movement for artists without changes in frequency response.
The CA/CX121M can also be used as a pole-mounted side fill – using the optional pole adapter – or sound reinforcement system without the need to rotate or reconfigure the drive unit. Also, the UBRKT/CT121M mounting yoke is available to facilitate permanent installation configurations.
The CA/CX121M utilizes a 12” (300 mm) coaxial transducer mounted in a compact, black or white durable plywood cabinet. The low-profile design includes discreet recessed handles – along with the optional pole adapter. The unit’s robust perforated steel grill is designed to withstand the rigors of the road and provide driver protection.
The optional SA625 power amplifier matches the power needs of the CA121M, providing optimized processing for performance and protection. The integral amp eliminates the need for additional rack space and speaker cable runs. Controlled via RHAON II, the SA625’s built-in DSP has eight parametric EQ filters, high and low shelf and high and low pass filters, and up to 358 ms. of delay. All options are accessed via a Windows computer running RHAON II. In addition, a single CA121M can power one additional CX121M with Bi-Amplified, processed output via an NL4 output. The CA121M-RD adds Dante digital signal distribution capability, including AES67 compatibility and network redundancy.
What is your new position, and what does it entail?
I am the national sales manager at Renkus-Heinz. The role oversees the North American and Canadian markets, and the position’s day-to-day duties include all things sales: rolling out sales initiatives, developing demo and event opportunities, and ensuring we see growth across the region. That said, the Renkus-Heinz sales team aims to be collaborative in the success of our customers. Thus, this role also includes a lot of outreach to our representatives, work with end users who rely on our solutions, and product development input to ensure we bring the right solutions to market. We want to do everything we can to ensure that our customers are happy.
How has your background prepared you for your new role?
I’ve been with Renkus-Heinz for three years, overseeing the western territory of the United States and Canada, and I have come to feel very much at home here. Renkus-Heinz is a family-run company, and that approach fosters commitment to the work we do. In my time here, I have worked directly on projects with our various partners—our reps, consultants, dealers, integrators and end users. That has included working on system design, custom product manufacturing, commissioning and support.
The asset that I leverage most often is my 40 years of experience providing a professional audio solution to someone else. I’ve worked in sales management, as a rep, as a salesperson in a music store and, of course, as a musician. Also, I have worked with some extraordinarily talented and prolific people through my journey in this industry, and I use what I’ve learned from others all the time to be successful today.
What new initiatives are we likely to see from the company?
Renkus-Heinz has continued to engineer new products over the past year. We recently announced the latest products in our C Series line and our S Series line, and we expanded the range of the new Iconyx Compact Series. We were very strategic with our supply chain last year, which meant chip and component shortages did not impact our ability to develop, manufacture or ship new solutions.
That same momentum can be expected for the year ahead. We will continue to bring new solutions to market as planned. We still have the ability to custom-fabricate solutions with custom paint and weatherization at our manufacturing facility in California. My moving into the national sales manager role is a strategic change that will allow us to work more closely with those who use our solutions. We recently hired Karan Kathuria to the position of director operating across Asia, Oceania and SAARC, giving us an increased presence in the region. We plan to continue to innovate, ship product and hire for positions that will support our partners.
There are two key objectives in play here. The first is to maintain the current sales as we bob and weave through a not-so-normal time. The second is to be prepared and ready for a return to normal. Renkus-Heinz expects 2021 will see a normalization as vaccine rollouts continue, and we will be prepared to transition into a faster growth mentality.
What is the greatest challenge you face?
I know many will expect me to talk about the pandemic, but I have always said that the most significant challenge today is tomorrow. How do we predict it? How do we prepare for it? How do we march into it? A company must be agile. What we do today is plan, but we always must recognize that tomorrow may change.
I believe Renkus-Heinz is incredibly agile. We’ve been strategic, we’re poised for growth, and we are responsive. We are focused on delivering the right product and solution, and we do it by ensuring we work collaboratively with our partners for their long-term success.
Jesuit preparatory school Loyola Blakefield recently upgraded its Dining Hall with a new sound system based around Renkus-Heinz’ ICLive X Series loudspeakers.
Towson, MD (September 9, 2020)—Jesuit preparatory school Loyola Blakefield recently upgraded its Dining Hall with a new sound system based around Renkus-Heinz’ ICLive X Series loudspeakers.
“This system allows our facility to be used for everything from morning prayer to emergency announcement,” said Steve Morill, IT Director for Loyola Blakefield. “It is a popular space for special events of many sizes with ever-changing seating arrangements. We want to offer the best possible learning environment for our students, and this space posed many challenges.”
With that in mind, the school contacted Lee Hartman & Sons, Inc. to discuss approaches to the space. “We had concerns about the aesthetics, and we didn’t want to invade the space with too many speakers,” said Mike Flaherty, sales engineer at Lee Hartman & Sons. “However, we wanted to ensure that the sound worked well in this acoustically challenging area.” Part of that challenge comes from the fact that the Dining Hall at Loyola Blakefield is not a traditional school cafeteria. It has a crisp, modern look that incorporates woodwork and stained-glass windows—all surfaces that would reflect audio and create aural havoc.
To avoid that, the team turned to Renkus-Heinz’ ICLive X Series, which makes use of Renkus-Heinz’ digital beam steering technology. The hall now utilizes two arrays of ICLive X loudspeakers. Each array is made up of two ICLX units. Renkus-Heinz TA62s are also installed in the front side corners of the space using the company’s Complex Conic constant directivity waveguide design to provide consistent coverage across a space. A pair of TX-61s are installed on the balcony level ensure coverage as well.
“Once we had the speakers installed, we spent about 20 minutes aiming the beams through the RHAON software,” said John Hurley, engineer at Lee Hartman & Sons, Inc. “The sound went from pretty good when they weren’t aimed at all, to truly amazing.”
Queen’s 17-minute set at Live Aid became the stuff of legend. The performance of Freddy Mercury (left) and Brian May was all the more dynamic because, according to Roy Clair of the band’s U.S. audio provider, Clair Global, FOH engineer Trip Khalaf “did opposite of what the movie Bohemian Rhapsody said. The movie said that he turned the volume up, but he actually pulled it down because everyone was overloading the system.” Pete Still / Popperfoto / Getty Images
London, UK—To say that the Live Aid benefit concert was ambitious is an understatement. Held simultaneously at London’s Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia’s John F. Kennedy Stadium [See Part 2] on July 13, 1985, it was broadcast live to an estimated 40 percent of the world’s population and featured an all-star roster of artists who had to be shepherded on and off stage with almost split-second timing—whether they were ready or not.
And just to make things more difficult, the first time anyone really heard the PA, supplied by Malcolm Hill Associates, was when Status Quo kicked off proceedings with “Rockin’ All Over the World.”
In October 1984, a BBC News story on the under-reported famine in Ethiopia generated a worldwide outpouring of donations to relief agencies. It also inspired Band Aid, a group of about 40 musicians assembled by Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats and Midge Ure of Ultravox, to record a timely charity single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Then Geldof had the bright idea to organize a bi-continental concert event to continue the fund-raising drive.
Owner Malcolm Hill’s company already had a reputation for handling very large events, including the likes of AC/DC’s Back in Black world tour and the U.K.’s Monsters of Rock festival, using its own Hill Audio products—mixing consoles, amplifiers, crossovers and speakers. On paper, the audio production for Live Aid was just a regular festival spec, according to Hill, with dual A/B desks and associated control gear at front of house and monitors, and dual sets of mics—the only items not manufactured by Hill Audio—and wedges. “Just a normal day at the office,” he says.
In total, 48 Hill M4 4-way cabinets were flown per side, with a stack of four per side for in-fill, controlled by a Hill 3-way stereo crossover. The M4 housed three long-coil 12-inch ATC speakers in a direct radiating/folded horn configuration and a pair of 10-inch dual-concentric Tannoy speakers plus, passively crossed over, a Renkus-Heinz horn and SSD 3301 compression driver. A combination of Hill TX1000 3-channel and DX3000 2-channel amplifiers provided power to the rig. TX1000 power amplifiers also drove two systems of tri-amped wedges, which used the same speaker components as the M4s. Hill C3 cabinets were available for side fill and drum fill use.
Out at the front of house mixing position, a pair of 32-input Hill M Series 3 desks were used, while with a pair of 32×10 versions were onstage at the monitor mix position. This was long before computers and plug-ins, of course, so the duplicate FOH racks were loaded with hardware such as AMS RMX16 and Roland SRE555 reverbs, Roland SDE3000 delays, Drawmer noise gates and compressor/limiters, and Eventide 910 and 949 Harmonizers.
While it was a typical gear list for a festival, things started to get complicated fast in the weeks leading up to July 13, when it was decided to broadcast the event live to TV viewers worldwide. Initially envisioned with 10 or 11 acts performing for the 72,000 concertgoers at Wembley Stadium, Live Aid’s bill soon mushroomed to nearly two-dozen artists as the enormity of the event and its charitable potential—not to mention the marketing benefit of a global TV audience—started to sink in.
The production was somewhat hamstrung by the smaller than optimum size of the stage, which was donated by Bruce Springsteen, who had performed at Wembley days earlier. For Live Aid, a revolving stage divided into three sections was added—for the current act, setup of the next act and breakdown of the previous act—and left little space for the cameras, monitor rig, band gear and hangers-on. A strict show schedule was imposed, with five-minute changeovers and sets of 10 or 15 minutes adhered to with clockwork precision. Later in the day, as the Philadelphia show got underway and TV coverage ping-ponged between performances at the two locations, changeovers were able to stretch out.
Savvier artists prepared themselves for the tight timing. Queen, famously, put together a 17-minute set that helped launch them to an even higher level of stardom. Others, like Ultravox, were more practical.
“I distinctly remember Ultravox choosing songs to perform which used the least equipment in order to eliminate the chances of something crucial not being patched in,” recalls Midge Ure. “Unlike regular guitar, bass and drums bands, we depended on hearing the DI’d synths/drum machines through the monitors, so we stuck to more traditional instrumentation for the majority of the set.”
He adds, “Both the live sound crew and the broadcast crew did an amazing job.”
Indeed, Hill puts the smooth running of the Wembley show down to the selfless contributions of volunteer Steve Dove, who had been working with Sony on Angus Young of AC/DC’s wireless guitar set-up. “Without him pacing backstage, fetching, coordinating and organizing the artists, the whole crazy venture would have totally fallen apart,” he says.
Problems with the mains power and generators during the several days of set-up prior to the Saturday show meant that the PA system was never checked on its own. Rather, the Hill crew were simply able to confirm that everything was at least passing audio during a handful of artists’ soundchecks and line checks.
A delay tower at FOH was hastily added and powered up on the Saturday morning of the show, at which time the PA was also covered by scrims painted with the Live Aid logo. But the logo was painted using emulsion, forcing engineers to drive the M4 rig’s high-end flat out to compensate for the lack of acoustic transparency.
During the show there were mercifully few hiccups. A mis-patched mic sent Paul McCartney’s piano and vocal to the two separate FOH consoles when he launched into “Let It Be” almost before anyone noticed he was on stage. That came in the wake of a blown power breaker that took The Who off the air for a short time.
“Was it perfect?” says Hill. “No, but it was magnificently better than doing nothing.”
Indeed, looking back, it’s the charitable impact that has had lasting effects, Hill says. “Friends of mine who run Hope for Justice, the modern-slavery charity, insist that Live Aid changed the mindset of the West to be more aware and pro-active in meeting the needs of struggling nations. And when a team from my church went to Ethiopia a few years ago, they were able to report that the relentless force that is Bob Geldof could be seen in the way aid is distributed, the road systems and even the political scene.”
For Hill, Live Aid was almost exactly half a lifetime ago. “Thirty-five years? That means I’ve lived for three more years after Live Aid than I had lived before.”
This article originally appeared in the June 2020 issue of Pro Sound News. Innovations is a monthly column in which different pro audio manufacturers are invited to discuss the thought process behind creating their products of note.
Ralph Heinz
It’s not common to set out to design a product that can truly be utilized by everyone in your industry. Typically, in product development, a team is tasked with solving a problem for a specific market, a standard use case, or in response to customer demand. To say “make this product fit for 99 percent of the market you serve” is rare—but, at Renkus-Heinz, we consider ourselves to be a team with a rare pedigree.
The journey to create the ICLive X Series goes back roughly two decades. It ends with a confident declaration that we have developed a solution for 99 percent of the pro-audio market, but it begins with the discovery of a beautifully unique algorithm in The Netherlands.
About 20 years ago, I was busy working on horn-loaded boxes. I had just come up with the formula for Complex Conic Horns and Renkus-Heinz was gaining credibility amongst peer engineers. That credibility led to me giving a few presentations on our technologies around the globe. After a presentation in The Netherlands on our CoEntrant designs, I was approached by Johann van der Werff of Peutz about a unique technology he and his firm had developed. It was the algorithm behind “side lobe” free digital beam steering.
For those who might not know, digital beam steering is the technology that allows you to expertly place audio exactly where you want it: on the audience. It keeps sound away from hard, reverberant sources and allows for extremely high levels of intelligibility in all areas of a room, no matter the configuration or architectural peculiarities that may be in play. With precise placement of audio, you ensure everyone is receiving the same high-quality sound. It has truly matured as a technology—but 20 years ago? Not so much.
A test case of beam-steerable loudspeakers had been installed at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. The example worked well, but it was truly an R&D system in the wild, with analog technology being used to provide elements such as delay and low-pass filters. Still, it was quite a marvel to look at.
Renkus-Heinz ICLive X Series
The reason Renkus-Heinz was approached with this information was that Johann believed we were the right folks to commercialize it and bring it into the world. Thus began our decades of work to not just develop the technology of digital beam steering, but truly harness it in a way that provides extreme benefits to those who rely on pro audio.
There have been many challenges we’ve successfully tackled over the years—things such as keeping our loudspeaker footprints small despite implementing cutting-edge technology, for example—but one key obstacle was what we call the “constant lambda array.”
To succinctly explain the challenge, we learned very quickly that with higher quality beams, you ran into an issue where you got solid coverage only in one half of a room – either the front or back. Our solution to this was exciting: We mathematically superimposed multiple beams onto one another to gain the coverage we needed.
It was an almost “point and shoot” solution. We used short, medium and long throw beams, all coming from the same virtual acoustic center, to create excellent coverage across a space. It was an excellent technical fix—but in practice, there was always a lot of training and support involved. While we at Renkus-Heinz dive into the technology every hour, we recognized that our integrator partners might be approaching it only on a monthly basis, and that meant a constantly steep learning curve.
To tackle this challenge, we developed the very first Unibeam—an algorithm creating asymmetric beams that utilizes the entire array for all frequencies. This results in a beam that is louder, can be thrown farther and had the potential to make setup more manageable.
I say “potential” because, at first, the Unibeam was a bit of an R&D oddity. We knew it could not only provide more effective coverage, but also reduce the level of manual input required from an installer. It had every sign of being a great enabler; we just had to find a way to manipulate and generalize it.
And thus we set to task to develop the software that could achieve this. But first, we asked ourselves: When designing the application to control this, what would be the best way to make it accessible to all? It was a question of if we could enable the solution for 99 percent of the market.
As we tackled that development, we soon developed an answer: Streamline the software down to a few button presses. In this moment, the ICLive X Series was born.
Our ICLive X Series are the first speakers in our range that allow for an elegant streamlining in digital beam steering setup. You’re asked for the angle from the bottom of the array to the front of the room and the angle from the top of the array to the back of the room. It then calculates that difference for you. That number is the Unibeam angle you want to deploy—and it is selectable in the software from a drop-down menu.
The result is that more venues can now quickly achieve the uniform results of digital beam steering without the pain points of the past.
The ICLive X is a culmination of a belief we had long held at our creative cores: that digital beam steering could be successfully implemented by all.
With the ICLive X, we have taken the power of digital beam steering from the hands of just the specialists and have given it to everyone, which means every installation now has specialist results.
The result? A solution that works for 99 percent of the market thanks to elegant setup, meticulous intention in design, and the provision of expertly placed audio precisely where you want it: on the audience.
Out at the front of house mixing position, a pair of 32-input Hill M Series 3 desks were used, while with a pair of 32×10 versions were onstage at the monitor mix position. This was long before computers and plug-ins, of course, so the duplicate FOH racks were loaded with hardware such as AMS RMX16 and Roland SRE555 reverbs, Roland SDE3000 delays, Drawmer noise gates and compressor/limiters, and Eventide 910 and 949 Harmonizers.
