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RESISTANCE AT ULTRA MIAMI 2023 Funktion-One Vero provides sound reinforcement for some of the biggest names in electronic music performing on the Megastructure at Ultra Miami.
Words: TPi Photos: Ultra Miami
Miami Music Week: the gathering of gatherings for the global electronic music community. Seven days of parties, which conclude with the grand finale, Ultra Music Festival. This is where Ultra Worldwide’s house and techno brand, Resistance, shines brightest, which is saying something considering its ever-increasing profile around the world. The 10,000 capacity Megastructure hosted a slew of talent, including headliners Eric Prydz, Adam Beyer, Camelphat and Carl Cox, and was home to a Funktion-One Vero sound system. The Megastructure is a tour de force of technical production expertise. Each year the team, led by Production Director Jim Baggott, who worked closely with Evan Bloom to design this year’s show, aims to somehow surpass the previous year, and each year they defy the odds by doing so. Realising the ambitious build and integration of Eric Prydz’s Holo Show on day one was a big consideration. “It was a real challenge,” said Baggott. “The Eric Prydz production loaded in on Wednesday, programmed on Thursday, ready for the show on Friday, but there was six hours of artists like Maceo Plex and Michael
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Bibi programmed beforehand. We had to work out how we could have other artists perform when the whole stage was out of bounds. We came up with a 15-minute changeover concept, where we built a huge rolling DJ booth, 24ft wide by 12ft deep, with two eight by eight-foot dancer platforms either side with lights and video on, and obviously audio and all the DJ equipment. On the day it worked like a dream, we managed to do the changeover in four minutes.” This meant Beware Productions’ sound crew - with support from Funktion-One’s distributor for the US, Coherent Distribution - loaded-in on Tuesday, deploying main left and right hangs of 12 Funktion-One Vero loudspeakers driven by Funktion-One D100Q amplifiers and a main stack of F124 bass speakers - four wide, five high - in a cardioid configuration at stage right; angled towards the VIP stage. Six Funktion-One F132 sub bass speakers delivered the ultimate low frequencies, while infill at downstage edge was a pair of Evo 7Ts, with F124s at downstage centre edge to address the pit area. Two delay stacks of three F124s and two Vero VX90s were positioned 37m from the main hangs, again powered
by Funktion-One D100Q amps. On-stage DJ monitoring was handled by two pairs of Funktion-One PSM318s. Beware Productions’ Brian Kee said: “Bringing a large Funktion-One system to an international stage like Ultra Music Festival solidifies for me that quality, high-fidelity audio is a language anyone can understand and enjoy. The smiles on everyone’s faces when each DJ drops their first track is the reason I love working with Funktion-One on these projects.” Due to the festival’s central location, the City of Miami imposes strict limits on the SPL being produced by Ultra’s sound systems. The Resistance stage is close to high-end residences on Biscayne Blvd, making restrictions particularly challenging. The event’s environmental noise monitoring company deploys multiple sensors at various locations that continually measure the levels, including an A-weighted microphone 18m from the downstage edge. Measuring points at several of the residential towers along Biscayne specifically assess low frequency content over time (the main concern with these residences) over time. The combination of these two constraints meant the audio team had to