The current line-up of Dweezil Zappa, Scheila Gonzalez, Pete Griffin, Billy Hulting, Jamie Kine, Ben Thomas, Joe Travers, and Chris Norton has toured the ZPZ show - a tribute to Frank's amazingly prolific output of over 60 albums performed in exacting detail - around the world for several years now and continue to do so on a fairly regular basis.
Mansfield-based ESS were contracted to supply audio for the UK dates, in the shape of a Turbosound Aspect system. The band and crew were relaxed and on top form for this last show of the tour at the Brighton Dome, with the iconic venue providing suitable surroundings for ESS's Aspect rig to get to grips with the band's extraordinarily complex arrangements and the room's conducive acoustics.
ESS systems tech Andy Hague explains his preference for deploying a point source system in a theatre-style venue like Brighton. The Dome, which seats approximately 2,000 people, is typical of a number of UK venues whose origins date back to the late 19th century in that it features a balcony, which of course lends the room its intimate atmosphere. And it's well known that squirting a PA with continuous vertical coverage at such a large, potentially reflective surface can end in tears.
"My approach is to try to point audio specifically where it's needed to deliver just the right amount of energy, and try not to over-excite the room with unwanted reflections - what we're actually trying to do is what the Americans like to call sound reinforcement," says Hague.
Hague describes the Aspect setup - "We're flying four TA-890 high packs a side off a two-wide bar, and ground-stacked we've got four high packs and five low packs. Three low packs in a vertical column on the outside and two lows underneath so we get the height and required vertical spread from the high packs without being visually obtrusive. Granted it's not an optimum configuration of low packs from a coupling point of view, but by subtle use of the gain controls we can achieve what we want to do. In Brighton this configuration totally minimised sightline issues.
"The flown TA-890H boxes are splayed at 25 degrees and the high packs on the ground are tilted down and up to give the right vertical coverage. For front fills we have TQ-440s and for outer fills again TQ-440s. Everything is run left / right because there is some fairly major stereo panning on this show. It's all on XTA processing and MC2 amplifiers."
(Jim Evans)
