Not only was this puppet-based production the largest tour the company had undertaken, but the size of venues would vary enormously; and on tours where truck space is at a premium, trucking the minimum amount of kit, while keeping the production scalable, was crucial.
The Warrington based company's relationship with Martin Audio dealers, LMC Audio Systems was also critical, and the latter's sales manager James Lawford was able to put a creative deal together that enabled Bogg to secure the new generation theatre system that he had been wanting.
In the era after the Wavefront WT3 theatre boxes, Martin Audio has now introduced the versatile, sophisticated and purpose designed XD12 and DD6 (Differential Dispersion) technology, each with rotatable horns, and voiced for musical theatre.
The dBS owner admits, "I bought the XD12s and DD6s specifically for this tour. We were always looking to add more Martin Audio boxes to our fleet [to complement the 16-box W8LM system] but what made it affordable was securing this tour. It meant I was able to design the sound around exactly what the show required, without compromise, rather than base the spec on what we had in our inventory - and XD12 was the box I wanted to use." Run with the DD6 and WS18X single 18in subs, he also saw it as a legacy system that would open the door to further similar projects.
"I had heard demos of the DD6 cabinets and colleagues had passed comment on how great they were, while the XD12 was the right size and dispersion, and sounded great when demoed," summarised Chris Bogg.
Although on larger shows, such as Manchester Palace, the company had fielded all eight XD12s and DD6s in their hire fleet, venues like the Swan Theatre, High Wycombe called on five DD6's to be placed along the stage lip as front-fills, with a further pair of the ultra-compact boxes rigged on the flanks of the stalls to provide out-fills to complement the in-house delay boxes, Run passively, six of the multi-angled, lightweight XD12s were rigged, three a side and focused into the stalls and balcony tiers.
In venues with very wide stalls sections where two boxes are used, the rotatable horn is used discerningly to create even coverage without comb filtering or exciting the walls of the venue. "For instance, in some cases the 80° x 50° configuration would be too wide when paired with another box if it wasn't for the fact that they are rotatable," notes Bogg. "This speaker also runs down to 60-70Hz with an EQ boost at 65 Hz. We remove this in the stalls, but leaving it in place between 3dB and 6dB in the upper tiers allows for a fuller rounder sound whilst eliminating the need for extra subs in these areas."
(Jim Evans)
