Now in its fourth year, Singapore's International a cappella festival has established itself as a month-long vocal extravaganza featuring top groups from many countries and in various styles.
This year's line-up was again highlighted by some of the best European a cappella groups: The Real Group from Sweden with its world-acclaimed and multiple-award-winning music; comedy-flavoured Muttis Kinder and Suade; alongside Vocado with jazz-infused a cappella and the Asian a cappella acts, highlighted by the Gay Singers from Hong Kong; and performances from Green Onion from Taiwan, and FlexiTones from Malaysia.
Turbosound's Singaporean distributor Consolidated Audio Networks supported this year's festival, which was held from 1 - 30 October 2011, with the leading youth groups and the country's favourite a cappella groups presenting their music alongside the international groups.
A selection of Turbosound speakers including the 15" two-way NuQ-15 and Milan M18 powered subwoofers were used for front of house duties, with 12" NuQ-12 two-ways used as stage monitors.
Xiang Ju Chan is the technical director for the A Cappella society, and was enthusiastic about the Turbosound system's simplicity. "The system is so easy to setup and use," he said. "Because the School of the Arts venue requires us to tear everything down after each continuous performance block, we had to set up the system at least six times throughout the whole festival. Therefore having a lot of boxes to set up would be difficult, considering that we only have one hour on some days to complete the set up and ensure that the whole system is working.
"The RACKDP-50 amplifiers were so easy to patch up once I got the initial settings stored in during the first day. In fact we didn't need to apply any EQ - just a 15ms delay to phase align with the subs was all that was needed.
"The NuQ-15s are powerful boxes with very even dispersion, and they gave plenty of level for the 200 seat hall with loads of headroom, and when they went loud it wasn't harsh - which is thanks to the linear phase filters in the RACKDP-50s."
During Freeplay Duo's sound check Canadian singer Dylan Bell, who is also a sound engineer, commented that although the NuQ-12 monitors were running very loud and above the levels they normally experience, they weren't overbearing or harsh sounding.
Chan reported that the NuQ-15 boxes had good definition across the frequency range. "When we were mixing the vocal percussion and beatbox acts such as Freddy, we were able to get tight and groovy beats, not just the muffled-sounding beats which equalisation cannot solve."
Chan also had praise for the Milan M18 powered subwoofer. "For its price point and weight it is amazing," he commented. "It must be the neodymium drivers working their magic."
All the performers were very happy with the system, according to Chan. "The Gay Singers sound engineer King Kong was very happy to see the NuQ system, and the group loved the sound," he said. "The Real Group performed in the larger concert hall where we augmented the main PA with NuQ-12 front fills, and many in the audience thought that the front-fills sound better than the main house system. Too bad we didn't have Flex Array or else I would have ordered the house speakers to be brought down."
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