The Sounds of the Underground tour—featuring metal and hardcore band Lamb of God, Opeth, Strapping Young Lad and High on Fire, with special guest GWAR—are currently touring through the U.S. and Canada. The rig that rouses the crowd is centered around E-V’s X-Line line array, flown low at left and right to cover the pit right in front of the stage. Even in this configuration, there’s still plenty of long-throw SPL for the audience sitting tight in the stadium seats.
Though the X-Line is a transparent-sounding speaker system, in this headroom-hitting application, its potential for high-SPL, knee-jerk–inducing punchiness is key: Sounds of the Underground isn’t subtle, hitting levels above 120 dB. Clear sound reproduction at super-high volume is priority.
GWAR FOH engineer Jeremy Smith explains, “The X-Line is the machine that powers the mosh pit, and we’re running it at full-bore! I was really happy to hear the tour was going out with E-V mains, monitors and fills. I’m already a big fan of E-V mics—nothing else stands up to the punishment GWAR puts them through—and getting to mix on the X-Line is an awesome experience on a tour like this. The system really needs to hit the crowd hard. The bands on the bill require a high degree of volume, intensity and power to deliver their various styles of metal and hardcore, and there’s no better rig, nothing else as muscular that I can think of to get the job done.”
For more information, please go to www.electrovoice.com. For more touring news, visit mixonline.com/livesound/tours.
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