Systems engineer Gert Sanner
UK sound rental company SSE Audio Group recently increased its investment in Dolby Live Sound’s Lake Contour loudspeaker processing with the purchase of six fully digital Pro26D units from UK distributor Out Board, bringing SSE’s Lake Contour inventory to eight. SSE is providing production sound on a European tour by rock legends Deep Purple, with four Contours providing management and system control of a unique hybrid of L-Acoustics and Nexo speaker elements under the supervision of Gert Sanner, systems engineer, supporting Doug Hall, Deep Purple’s front-of-house engineer.
Sanner’s system configuration for the arena tour, which featured special guest Alice Cooper on the German shows, has one Lake Contour running the L-Acoustics V-DOSC three-way main hangs with a second Contour providing bi-amped left and right dV-DOSC underhang mixes together with brickwall-filtered feeds to Nexo CD18 sub-bass cabinets. A third Contour drives a pair of dV-DOSC sidehangs combined with Nexo Alpha subs, all fed in reversed-stereo with respect to the main V-DOSC system to provide some image spread in the stage-side audience areas. The fourth Contour takes matrix mixes from the console and distributes them to a center dV-DOSC system and sub array.
Rich Rowley, SSE hire manager, says, “We had very positive experiences using the Lake Contours for EQ and delay zone control over the 2005 summer festival season. Our engineers like the flexibility of the software and the clean sound of the units. Our recent L-Acoustics purchases were specifically intended to give SSE another very premium, rider-friendly system to offer our clients, and Lake was clearly the obvious way forward for speaker management.”
Four of SSE’s Lake Contours initially provided loudspeaker management and system EQ/delay on Canadian singer Michael Bouble’s It’s Time European tour, which also featured SSE’s recent L-Acoustics acquisitions. A further four units were assigned to EQ and delay zone control on the Oasis tour, specified by FOH engineer Bruce Johnson, for use with SSE’s Nexo Geo-T Line array system.
For more information, visit Dolby online at www.dolby.com/livesound. For more information on SSE Audio Group, visit www.sseaudio.com. For more touring news, visit mixonline.com/livesound/tours/.
