Crew chief Tony Luna and the Electro-Voice rig
The summer 2006 “Double Trouble” southern rock tour featuring Lynyrd Skynyrd, 3 Doors Down and Shooter Jennings, is underway, selling out large venues across the U.S., with gear provided by LD Systems.
The sound company’s Electro-Voice X-Line System, comprising 40 Xvls, eight Xvlt and 28 Xsub boxes, is delivering the Skynyrd classics and 3DD hits with musicality and punchiness night after night. The system is powered by 74 E-V P3000RL remote-control DSP amplifiers; additional E-V equipment includes eight X-Array Xn fills.
“As always, the X-Line rig sounds awesome,” says LD Systems’ Robert Ausmus. “It’s really unmatched as a rock rig; ask anyone who’s heard one! Crew chief Tony Luna and his crew also love how quickly they can load in and tear down the system. X-Line deployment is headache-free. When you often have the main system up and ready to go by 10:30 in the morning, you can spend the day fine-tuning the other details. It all adds finesse to the tour production.
“This tour is playing all kinds of venues, and the X-Line is proving equally impressive in all of them—be it a shed, a stadium or an arena, it simply sounds good,” Ausmus continues. “Playing all these shapes and sizes of venues has really proved the X-Line’s flexibility. For example, we’ve had great results using the Xsubs in one particular configuration: In all the sheds and some stadiums, we landed the flown 14-box sub arrays on the stage deck, creating two stable, supertall sub stacks with small footprints. This coupling gives us the best of both worlds, allowing us to deliver the serious punch of ground-stacked Xsubs all the way off in the far-field of a large venue. You need that consistent punch to make a rock show really satisfying, and this means every seat in the house gets the full sonic experience.”
Additional crew from LD Systems includes monitor tech Tony “Lil’ Fighter ” Sabato, systems techs Jimmy ” Stinky ” Steinke and Carlos Sallaberry, and alternate tech Michael Graeme. Running FOH for Lynyrd Skynyrd is Steve “Half Pint” Cross, while monitors are handled by Dave Baker. Also onboard is systems tech Dave Cheek. 3 Doors Down crew includes FOH engineer Kirk Kelsey and monitor engineer Mark Thompson.
For additional information on the rig, visit www.electrovoice.com. LD Systems can be found online at www.ldsystems.com. Get your touring update at mixonline.com/livesound/tours.
