from the screen of John Klett
2023 was Despacio sound system's 10th year. Who knew this would still be going after 10 years but after the first set of shows at the 2013 Manchester International Festival (England) we did know we were on to something and travel cases were made.
There are tons of photos from Despacio events in social media... on Instagram, on Facebook, on Reddit... one of the amusing threads on the Despacio Subreddit was a thing about managing one's fluid intake so one could stay on the dance floor for every minute of a six hour set without having to leave to take a pee... I appreciate the sentiment but... take care of your kidneys - dehydration is not good for them. I am not sure what the solution is... a catheter seems like a good idea but then there is the bag and dancing and such... probably not the ideal solution either.
We have a fantastic team that puts these rare-ish events together. It's satisfying work and we see a lot of repeat guests from all over who come to release themselves on the dance floor.
We are pretty sure there was a child conceived right on the dance floor at a 2015 event... very tastefully done BTW - not even sure that would have gotten an "R rating" in America. That child would be turning 8 in June 2024.
The sound system itself is built up and arranged as seven three meter tall stacks of amplifiers and speaker cabinets surrounding a dance floor that is roughly 22 meters across.
Each stack breaks down in to different speaker cabinets that cover sub-bass, bass, lower middle and upper-middle/UHF. In the earlier version of this page I described the frequency ranges for each of the "bands" but over time those numbers have shifted around.
When this project came up as a real thing it was January 2013, about seven months before the MIF 2013 event. There were a number of interesting design iterations... one looked like a eleven foot tall Dalek and was named as such. As we got a little more serious about it a few more design iterations came and went and in April, 90 days before the MIF event, we arrived at the "Monolith" design which is more or less what we built. Next we had to find a builder who would take the design from virtual paper to physical objects and, after a month and a half of having builders informing us that it would take at least a year to properly prototype test re-engineer and build such a thing, we finally got a yes... that was six weeks prior to the MIF event. The speakers arrived at the venue July 15th, three days before open doors, smelling of fresh lacquer. The top parts (the bird houses) were unfinished so we rubbed some clear oil finish on them as we stacked everything up. That was when, for the first time, the system was assembled and powered up. Three days later we did the first of three 10pm to curfew sets.
Despacio Soundsystem: From workshop to dance floor - timelapse v2 - on Vimeo from13 Aug 2013
Basic Facts:
We typically operate with 10dB or more dynamic headroom so you'll see the power meters on the big amplifiers running, on average, at around 12 to 120 Watts each... we are running on average with around 8,000 to 10,000 Watts. We don't compress or limit the audio because we want to reproduce the original space and dynamics of the vinyl records we are playing - this is what all the rest of the power is for - headroom.
Headroom is the point.
We monitor levels on the floor to track and conform to standards for sound exposure, and strongly recommend that everyone who spends time on the floor use some quality hi-fi hearing protection… sound exposure is cumulative so if anyone spends significant time in the middle of the floor (or any loud place) they should have some good plugs - not those foam things.
Rarity: as of April 2024 we have set Despacio up 19 times for events from two to six days each.
why so rare? - the costs to move and set this up are significant - we don't fit in to a lot of venues - we need more setup time which adds to more days in venue and consequent costs. There is not really a lot we can do about all that, so as I tell everyone who is interested - yes it's a must see - don't assume you'll catch it some day - some day may never come. One should assume that when a Despacio event is announced one should book the tickets, make arrangements and attend... and then if it happens again, do it again... and freak out. We have a contingent, or community, of people who we see at nearly every event no matter where it is.
I have nothing to do with booking the system so don't contact me about it...
(update 14 April 2024)
site content copyright john klett 1995 - 2024