Robots at Red Rocks? A look behind the venue’s sound mitigation

Robots at Red Rocks sounds like science-fiction, but the reality is that a certain sound system is getting some automated help, thanks to a new partnership between PK Sound and local production company Greater Than Entertainment (GTE).

The collab centers around PK’s state-of-the-art Trinity Black multi-axis robotic technology that allows for precision coverage and control, dispersing sound away from certain reflective surfaces and mitigating unnecessary noise, inside and out of the venue.  

“Trinity Black was brought to Denver for Red Rocks,” says GTE President Alex Zentz, adding that other systems typically increase volume to nullify echo. “A complex venue like Red Rocks and the noise-mitigation concerns, far-field noise emissions, with conventional means. In order to overcome all of the deflections that are the rocks, all the hard surfaces surrounding every seating position in that amphitheater, we have to drive the system harder to overcome all those reflections that you hear, specifically around row 50 and 60.”

That’s not the case with Trinity Black, as each box — 32 total, 16 each side, at Red Rocks — can be robotically controlled to aim sound vertically and horizontally, while maintaining acceptable decibel levels.  

“Horizontal is really the name of the game, in terms of keeping the energy off of those rocks, those reflective surfaces. We’re not having to drive the system louder to overcome it, while still covering more precisely,” Zentz adds.

“Now we can reach a certain decibel limit in the space, but it’s clean because we’re not overexciting the space. If we put too much energy onto those rocks, then we have all of those reflections, and those reflections turn into an un-cohesive nightmare for the listening experience,” he continues. “Consequentially, we have to raise the volume of the system to try and overcome that. Because that control is there via the robotics, we’re not creating a scenario where we have to overcome things. It’s very clean.”

Zentz has been part of the live-entertainment business, specifically in Denver and beyond, for twenty years with GTE and has worked for more than a decade to become a third-party sound provider at Red Rocks. Having the Trinity Black system, the most expensive on the market right now, break into the Colorado scene is allowing GTE to share it with more artists. The Wooli show on Sunday, June 21, will be the tenth Trinity Black-GTE concert of the season, and there are a handful more planned through October, according to Zentz, who would have been happy with one such date this year.

“That would have been a win, so to have ten under our belt shows the momentum,” he says. “We’ve seen nothing but positive feedback to the tune of people saying this should just be the new installed system. The people are demanding the Trinity Black.”

PK Audio, headquartered in Canada, developed the flagship Trinity Series to give venues and providers more control of the soundscape. While Trinity Black is the biggest of the robotic line arrays, there are more compact options for smaller, mid-size venues, too. For example, Aspen’s Wheeler Opera House is installing the T8 package. All three Trinity Series options are showcased in GTE’s Denver demo room.

“Our focus was the big leagues with this, so we invested heavily in Trinity Black, to the point there are 56 of them here. We can quite literally cover Red Rocks three-times over with that many enclosures,” Zentz says.

“We find often times that good enough is good enough, and people settle, they get comfortable,” he concludes. “I’m a perfectionist through and through. I take it to an excessive level, so we’re constantly refining it. PK has really developed something quite special, quite unique.”