Kappa FuturFestival is an annual two day electronic festival in Turin, which features popular and emerging names from the worlds of house and techno.
Attracting over 40,000 fans to the disused warehouse location of Parco Dora from noon to midnight, Kappa FuturFestival gives the audience a chance not only to revel in electronic beats but to enjoy a first class sound system provided by Rome-based Loud Professional. This year they powered the Main Stage PA to large extent with Powersoft‘s advanced Class D amplification.
The Main Stage playing through a sound system designed by Michele Azzimonti was an all-star line-up, including Gandalf, Monika Kruse, Sam Paganini, Solomun , Davide Squillace, Marco Carola, Just a Mood, Kerri Chandler, Sven Väth, Skin b2b Nicole Moudaber, Nina Kravitz and Ben Klock.
According to Valerio Cherubini, founder of Powersoft’s strategic partner, Loud Professional, Kappa is the best Electro Music Festival in Italy and is one of the five most important summer festivals in Europe. “The location inside Parco Dora is absolutely unique as is the atmosphere created at sunset after the sun goes down. The crowd is really warm, and into their music, dancing for 12 hours non stop.”
“Every type of electro music is played on the three different stages each with its own speciality. Each DJ’s live set is accompanied by the best sound and lighting technologies in a powerful mix.
For the sound component, Loud Professional provided a VH Layer three-way horn loaded line array for the main house system, with monitors, subs, a three-way point source front fill and delays.
The main flown PA comprised 28 VH Layer212H (14 elements per side), with the 40 VH Sub121H hybrid subs stacked at the front of the stage in an ‘End Fire’ configuration (in 10 stacks of four units each). For the delays, 12 VH Layer112H and six VH Sub218R, reflex-loaded subs were deployed.
Assigned to driving the system were a pair of Powersoft X8 on the stage for the DJ booth, a further pair of Powersoft K10 and four K6 for the front fills.
Valerio Cherubini explained that the assignment of the powerful X8 on the DJ booth monitors had been particularly important. “We also run our own system with these amplifiers,” he confirmed. “Every DJ will ask for something different but for sure they want listening music at very high levels with the best quality. DJ’s from all over the world produce tracks in their studios and need to be able to listen accurately. The sound of X Series and Loud Pro, combined together, is so powerful, smooth, precise and never aggressive, that it allows them to experience clarity as never before. It is far more accurate than the previous system used.”
He adds that the onboard DSP also provides opportunities to manage every kind of sound reinforcement system. “Armonía Pro Audio Suite, the networking dialogue software, is simple to use and everything you need is immediately under control,” he says.
The amplification was located downstage, and connected to the LAN via a laptop. At FOH, sound engineer Francesco Scotti was piloting an Avid Venue SC48 (and also running monitors along with Michele Azzimonti). System Tech was David Mandaradoni.
Summarised system tech Francesco Scotti, “It was a great gig from beginning to end. Armonia helped us a lot to manage the DJ monitors from FOH, as we didn't have a dedicated monitor console on stage. All the amplifiers ran without problems in a difficult situation, as the weather was so hot, and the music ran for 12 hours non-stop.”
This was confirmed by Valerio Cherubini. “The system was really powerful and well defined, and everyone appreciated the depth of the bass combined with the punch, the great impact and clarity of the mid-tops. We measured peaks of 112dBA at 50 meters and we never ran the sound system at maximum power or over 50% of its capacity.
“The organisers were also delighted with the functionality of the sound system as were the crowds. In fact someone wrote that for the first time Kappa had a sound system worthy of respect!”
