Eddie Mapp
Boston, MA (June 18, 2013)—Pop punk act Paramore released its fourth album in April and has been on the road, promoting the self-titled set which entered the Billboard charts at number 1. As part of that process, the group recently touched down at Boston’s House of Blues for a show, with FOH engineer Eddie Mapp in tow. Given the proximity to Eastern Acoustic Works’ Whitinsville, MA factory, the show also became an opportunity for Mapp to try out EAW’s new Anya PA, which was brought in just for the show.
“Eddie gave us valuable insight during the development process for Anya,” EAW President Jeff Rocha said. “When we saw that Paramore’s schedule brought them through Boston, we reached out to the House of Blues to see if we could get Eddie a chance to mix on Anya. The team at House of Blues was fantastic about this unusual request, and the result has been great.”
Like many large concert halls, the House of Blues in Boston features a large, steeply-raked balcony that reaches high above the PA. EAW’s Anya system reportedly can cover nearly 180° in the vertical plane, which allowed it to reach the far corners of the venue.
“The coverage and ability to directly localize the sound source with minimal interference from the room was incredible!” Mapp said. “It’s exciting to see new approaches in audio, and I think it’ll be fun to see how Anya develops, especially with its ability to quickly adapt to a wide variety of situations. When you can’t exactly point the speaker at the people, Anya lets you point the sound at the people. This becomes a win-win situation not only for (front-of-house) engineers but for everybody in production and other artistic decision-makers. When the PA can’t always be placed in the most desirable acoustic listening position, it can cause a lot of tension. With Anya, you have a lot more leeway about where you put the PA.”
In terms of sound quality, Anya left Mapp favorably impressed. “Anya doesn’t sound like a typical concert array,” Mapp said, “more like a pair of giant nearfield monitors. In the Paramore show, there are a lot of subtle elements, such as various acoustic and percussive instruments, from ukulele to glockenspiel that don’t always translate well it into the mix on some systems. But with Anya, everything was immediately present with the necessary transient response required for an extremely dynamic show. To tell you the truth, mixing on this system is a lot of fun.”
EAW
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