London, UK (January 27, 2012)—Legendary London venue Brixton Academy recently hosted American supergroup Chickenfoot, and got its first experience with a Martin Audio MLA system as a result.
Built in art deco style during the cinema boom of the late 1920s, the venue is now Grade II-listed building, but still hosts plenty of hard rock acts, such as Chickenfoot, comprised of Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and and drummer Kenny Aronoff (filling in for Chad Smith, who was off with the Red Hot Chili Peppers). Hitting the Academy, the act was heard via the Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array (MLA) making its debut there via Capital Sound.
FOH engineer Michael ‘Ace’ Baker watched Martin Audio‘s R&D Director Jason Baird and system tech Mark Edwards notch out a chunk of the coverage pattern in the dedicated optimization software to avoid a massive plaster balcony façade.
“Chickenfoot is one of the loudest bands that have played through the system, so we stood onstage and switched the MLA’s DSP from a setting that didn’t notch it out to one that did, using the tablet PC over the WiFi link,” explained Baird.
Baker had wanted to pilot the MLA since hearing it in demo Las Vegas last summer. Knowing that his monitor engineer Jim Jorgensen was about to join Martin Audio, he applied pressure; so that by the time production arrived in Brixton, there were nine MLA elements and an MLD Downfill ready to be rigged each side, with six MLX’s ground stacked on either flank.
“I had been hugely impressed with MLA and could see the math behind it, but there’s only so much you can learn under demonstration conditions. I had to get the system out there,” declared Ace. “Right now, this is the one that has everyone talking about it. There will be a lot of touring ahead this year and MLA is the system I want to use from now on.”
Martin Audio
www.martin-audio.com
