FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
How does it all work?
Do you have to have people on the bikes all the time?
This depends on the volume required. With a full battery we can run for up to an hour at medium/low volume levels but at full power we can only run for 10 or so minutes. We make sure that the voltage does not go low enough to damage the battery by slowly turning the music down and encouraging people to pedal. Our unique LED voltage meter makes it easy for everyone to understand how much power we have. One person on a bike is enough to keep the music going but the more people the louder it gets. The larger the gig the less problems we have for power! At gigs where there is a poor turnout our crew can keep the power going. Lots of food and exercise keeps us strong so we are a good backup power supply!
What spec is the sound system?
I find that traditional methods of quantifying PA are misleading. Manufacturers are compelled to make money from mass producing PAs. This means that they focus on reducing cost of building by making simple designs which do not maximize sound per watt. In fact they are encouraged to make speakers which use lots of power so that they can say their PA is bigger. We build very complicated speaker designs from quality (FSC) wood. Our speakers are designed to produce loads of very clear sound from very little power. So if you compare it to a Void Bassys system which has a sensitivity of 98Db Our speakers have a sensitivity of 110Db meaning that you have to put 16watts into the void speakers to equal what our speakers do from 1 watt. We can get up to 1200watts Rms from the 6 bikes but because music is transient we can output peaks around 1500 watts. With this amount of power we can easily match the output from a conventional 5k system.
What do you do for backline?
Guitar amplifiers are not designed to be efficient. Unlike our system they use class a/b amplifiers and reflex boxes. Some have massive 600watt amplifiers to power them. It is impractical for us to run such inefficient amplifiers from bike power as it is a big waste of effort. We can run smaller Amps in the 100watt region if the artists feel it is necessary for tone, but to maximize the output we prefer the use of pedals for effects with the artists hearing themselves through our super efficient and loud stage monitors. This has an added benefit of reducing the muddy stage over spill from the guitar amps which often point at the guitarists ankles anyway! By reducing the on stage volume in this way the audience only hears the in-time sound directly from the pa with less mud.
For any other questions please feel free to get in touch