Bryan Adams’ current world tour is showcasing his latest projects, including his new album Room Service and a concert DVD. The tour’s Middle East leg wrapped up with a one-night engagement in the United Arab Emirates’s Dubai City, where he filled the 5,000-seat Dubai Tennis Stadium.
Local rental firm Artes Audio-Visual kept everything running smoothly with technical crew and services, including a large audio system from longtime partner Meyer Sound. Avril Rodrigues, head of Artes’ audio department, explains that the size of the crowd dictated that the company use an M3D line array loudspeaker. “With a 95-percent turnout, the venue demanded high sound pressure levels,” Rodrigues says, “which were smoothly delivered by the Meyer M3D system.”
The backbone of the system was 16 M3D cabinets, coupled with eight M3D-Sub directional subwoofers for very low end and six CQ-2 narrow-coverage main loudspeakers for front-fill. Rodrigues designed the cabinet placement and overall configuration of the system using Meyer Sound’s MAPP Online Pro acoustical prediction software. This let Rodrigues quickly experiment with several approaches to counteract the arena’s acoustical problems, including inconvenient rigging locations that encourage already problematic echoes. “I normally use MAPP Online Pro to predict dispersion, impulse response and so forth. Let me tell you, MAPP is a blessing to all Meyer users.”
However, being an outdoor show, there were other obstacles, notes Meyer Sound associate “dB Dave” Dennison. “There were pretty extreme temperature and humidity changes from day to night, which historically alters the overall frequency response of the system,” says Dennison. This required additional system processing, in the form of an LD-3 compensating line driver and two CP-10 complementary phase parametric equalizers. “These climate changes were easily compensated for with the LD-3, as it has environmental controls that allow you to adjust for temperature and relative humidity. Once the system was optimized, it became very stable and predictable.
“System-wise, everything was very consistent,” Dennison continues. “Bryan Adams even stated onstage that ‘This must be the best sound system in the entire region.’”
For more information on Meyer Sound, visit www.meyersound.com. For more information on Artes Audio-Visual, visit www.artesme.com. Get your touring update at mixonline.com/livesound/tours.
