TRANSPARENT SONIC SIGNATURE – Austin City Limits Music Festival – Austin, TX

Since 2002, Austin City Limits Music Festival has entertained up to 450,000 festival-goers each October.  It’s a family-friendly festival whose success is in no small part due to the carefully chosen, genre-spanning line-up of the world’s top artists, including rock, indie, country, folk, electronic, hip hop and jazz.

The transparent sonic signature of the L-Acoustics K system accurately translates the sound of acts as diverse as deadmau5, Asleep at the Wheel, TameImpala and Foo Fighters. It’s not the right sound for one type of music, it’s the right sound for all types of music.

Houston-based LD Systems has been working with event producer C3 Presents since the festival’s beginning. Brandon Sossamon, Production Manager at C3 Presents notes “LD Systems uses K1 at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, a challenging venue for sound. The system there sounded like two reference monitors in my face, and I knew it was the right tool for Austin City Limits.” One of the biggest challenges at Austin City Limits is that the stages are quiet between acts. But even without a sound check, the K1/K2 system is perfectly transparent, reproducing exactly what the Sound Engineer wants to hear. He can go right from his reference monitors or headphones to the show, without a pause.

Knowing that the system will perform unfailingly is a source of comfort to the engineers and an indispensable asset for the production team. Whatever the style, the K system gives the audience the best performance.

“We call all of the sound engineers in the planning stages. Since we’ve started using K1, those conversations are a lot shorter based on the universal acceptance of K1. Most have already worked with it and others are more than willing based on its reputation for neutral, accurate sound. With K1, you get out of it what you put into it, which means a lot more shows get off to a great start right from the first song.” Robert Ausmus, Director of Production Services LD Systems

EQUIPMENT LIST

  • 52 x K1
  • 74 x K2
  • 48 x K1-SB
  • 12 x Kara
  • 12 x 108P
  • 60 x SB28
  • 8 x ARCS II
  • 4 x SB18
  • 28 x X15 HiQ
  • 20 x LA8