The fifth Eins Live Krone awards ceremony was held in December 2004. This is the most important German radio award and consists of the following categories: best band, best comedy, best album, best female artist, best male artist, best newcomer, best live act, best single and a lifetime achievement award. The nominees for the 2004 awards included top acts such as Dick Brave, Söhne Mannheims, Gentlemen, Bully Herbig, Max Herre, Toten Hosen, Wir sind Helden and many more. 800,000 listeners voted to choose which stars would receive the coveted trophies. Only the lifetime achievement award was decided by a jury.
The big day came on December 2nd. All the seats in the Arena Oberhausen were sold out and 10,000 excited fans waited for the results. They were not disappointed. All the stars put on superb performances to produce a stunning show. More than half the acts performed live, with average changeover times of only 6 minutes.
The entire show was broadcast by the Eins Live radio station and on the WDR television channel!
TON-ART and the awards
For the 3rd year in a row the Düsseldorf company TON-ART AG was responsible for the sound at the awards ceremony. Following positive experiences in previous years, a PM1D with 96 channels for the bands was once again used for FOH this year. An O2R mixer was used for the presenters, with an AD824 as pre-amp. A PM 5D was the perfect choice of monitor. Six AD8HR converters with gain settings that could be saved were used as pre-amps and were connected with the PM 5D via CobraNet. Three integrated MY 16C cards in the console received the 48 inputs from the converters. On the output side the AD8HR converter outputs were converted from AES/EBU to CobraNet via two NHB32s.
A conventional splitter was chosen for signal distribution between the FOH, the monitor and the outside broadcast truck. A tap was put in place for the bands' own monitor consoles and was used by some bands.
As the bands and the outside broadcast truck also had digital consoles, no patching was needed on the splitter. This meant that major changeovers and line checks between two live acts could be completed in only 6 minutes.
The band Gentlemen had sent their show in file form by e-mail in advance and it was ready and waiting for the monitor engineer on the PM5D. After a few small modifications this was incorporated into the set-up.
There were two different PA problems to be resolved:
Location-specific sound had to be broadcast on the one hand from the live acts on the main stage and
on the other hand from the presenters on a round stage which jutted out into the audience.
Three delay positions at the back of the hall had to provide support for the music stage and the presenters' stage.
A DME 32 was fed via AES/EBU from both FOH consoles. Three DA824s were used for the sends. A Nexo Geo-T was chosen as the main PA system.
EAW KF750/755 speakers were used for the sides and the delays and CD-18s for the basses. d&b audio E9s were used for the near field and Q1s and Q7s for the presenters' stage.
The individual line arrays were divided into three areas: top/bottom/downfill. This allowed the sound from the speakers for the audience to be controlled separately from some distance away. The presenters' stage had 12 outputs.
The delays were set up with a matrix for the specific location of each stage.
Three years ago TON-ART developed a cabling system with multicore, panels and terminators for AES/EBU, which has proved to be a flexible tool for transmitting from AD and DA converters. This means that the DA converters can stand next to the amps, thereby avoiding all the problems which result from long analogue cable connections.
The praise which TON-ART received from its client at the end of the evening demonstrated that the whole concept has really proved its worth.
