Leaving their US hire regulars behind in favour of UK partner SSE Audio, LA’s Maroon 5 embarked on the European leg of their arena tour with an L-Acoustics K1/K2 PA system. With DiGiCo SD7 consoles at front of house and monitors, FOH engineer Jim Ebdon has also added a PreSonus ADL 600 tube preamp and ADL 700 tube channel strip.

‘I go way back with SSE, to my time with Wet Wet Wet, Morrissey and S Club Seven,’ says Ebdon. ‘Their packaging and line system is brilliant.’

For the Summmer’s Going to Hurt Like a Motherf---er tour, Ebdon is using a combination of DiGiCo’s SD7 and Waves package since it was introduced, following his use of DiGiCo’s first digital mixing console, the D5 Live. ‘DiGiCo consoles don’t colour the sound in any way,’ he says. ‘I find the SD7 the easiest digital desk to operate and the most musical. I like the fact that the surface has 50 faders.’

At the head of the band’s last tour, he relied heavily on snapshots and programming. ‘Halfway through, I realised that I wanted to mix because I like mixing,’ he recalls. ‘I can pretty much get my whole mix on the top fader bank, so I have a start-up position using snapshots with a few mutes, but from then I’m mixing, changing EQ and doing what I’m paid to do. It’s more interesting, productive and more fun – the band play and I play the band, so I need to have some artistic sympathy and musical awareness. The console makes this an easy task.’

Ebdon principally uses the Waves plug-ins for subtle compression and sweetening. ‘I don’t go crazy with them. They are really just a little tinsel on the top,’ he says. ‘I’m also using a Focusrite ISA 430 on Adam’s voice, because I like to have analogue processing on the lead vocal, and a Sonic Farm Creamliner across the analogue mix just to warm it up.’

As well as the band microphones – a mixture of AKG, Royer, Sennheiser and Shure – Ebdon has a selection of audience mics, because he records every night direct from the stage racks to Pro Tools. ‘It’s very simple to do. I’m sometimes asked for a number of songs, fully mixed, within a few days, so I mix down the 64 Pro Tools tracks with a small pair of Genelecs while I’m on the bus,’ he says. ‘The whole system works really well.’

‘The number one reason that I hold the SD7 in high regard is that it sounds the best. It’s a really musical sounding board and I don’t think anything’s better,’ offers monitor engineer, Kevin Glendinning. ‘I’ve been with Maroon 5 on and off for a long time and there used to be masses of wedges, side fills and subs – there was stuff everywhere. Nowadays it is a lot more streamlined – a combination of Sound Image wedges and Shure PSM1000 in-ears with JH Audio earpieces – but things have grown over the years and we’ve increased the number of inputs and outputs. We have 75 inputs now, which is a lot for monitors.’

Part of the increase is down to a comprehensive comms system, put together by Sound Image tech Marcus Douglas. ‘It’s as crucial as the monitor system. The days of hand signals have gone, we have talk mics that can supersede our listen buss,’ says Glendinning. ‘It’s a very effective way to do it, but it has built the numbers up because everyone has to double up on microphones.’

With a full SD-Rack, plus an SD-Mini Rack and using the SD7’s local inputs for talkback and other uses, the set-up could get very complex. But things are kept as basic as possible: ‘We try to keep it simple, the sound comes in, we EQ and do some dynamic work on it, then the sound goes out. I don’t do things just for the sake of being flashy. If I have to leave for any reason, Marcus can take over. It keeps our head straight and if there’s a problem it’s usually fixable,’ says Glendinning.

‘The DiGiCo sound is so natural, musical and pleasant. There’s no harshness to it, it’s very accurate and it just sounds right. I also like having the dual engines. It’s nice to have it in your back pocket if something happens.

‘The SD7 also has room to grow, if required,’ he continues. ‘You don’t ever want to tell a client ‘no’, especially this band. They are all very music savvy and production oriented, which keeps me on my toes. But I think the cat’s out of the bag – they know the board can do anything.’

The PA... 

With a 70m-long runway leading to a B stage, SSE designed a loudspeaker system based on 12 L-Acoustics K1 per side as main hangs, with six K2 underneath, plus side hangs of six K1 and six K2 each. Twelve SB28 subs per side were set in a traditional LR configuration, three of which were splayed 90° off stage to even out low end distribution. Rear hangs of 12 Kara per side ensured that seats could be sold past the 180º line, while six Kara lip fills and eight Kiva front fills completed the system, which was powered by LA8 amplifiers.

‘We needed to ensure that the main hangs didn’t swamp the runway and B Stage,’ SSE Project Manager Pete Russell explains. ‘We used Soundvision, which proved that the K2 cabinets gave us more control of the horizontal dispersion pattern.’

‘We’ve been using the widest 110° setting on the K2 waveguides and have just used the array delta plate to adjust the azimuth angle slightly,’ adds SSE System Tech, Perttu Korteniemi. ‘The results have been excellent, giving an even coverage without any feedback issues from the vocal mics.

‘The only real challenge was the need for good sight lines to the B stage, so there were no delays – we had to make sure there were enough cabinets for the throw in the main hangs. But K1 does that really well, the transition between K1 and K2 is seamless and the sonic quality really consistent,’ he continued. ‘Set-up and load-out times were limited, but the way we had it set up made it easy.’

‘SSE’s L-Acoustics systems are great, they are tried and tested. I don’t have to do anything to them – I don’t even have to think about them,’ Ebdon says. ‘I was mixing on the K2s because the FOH position was a little closer than I ideally wanted it to be, but because the sound is so consistent between the K1 and K2 it wasn’t a problem. I could just get on and mix.’

Use of the PreSonus processing was prompted by personal recommendation: ‘My friend Andy Meyer [FOH for Guns N’ Roses, Janet Mötley Crüe, Rage Against the Machine] suggested I try them out,’ Ebdon says. ‘He had been getting great results, so I tried the ADL 700 on Adam Levine’s vocals, and it worked very well, bringing his voice out of the digital domain with power and intelligibility. I like the ADL 700’s semi-parametric EQ for taking out a consistent tone inherent in the microphone; I usually don’t touch the EQ after the initial setup of the unit. And the ADL 700’s compressor has that tube tone that is so endearing to live sound. It’s warm, smooth, and fast.

‘I then mixed it up a bit and put the ADL 600 on Adam’s vocal. I reset my original vocal chain and put one side of the ADL 600 on at the end, strapped across the master bus. Again, the vocal popped and became bigger. I tried the main guitar through the ADL 700 with phenomenal results. I got the biggest guitar sound imaginable, and it was warm, smooth, and clear.

‘The ADLs are extremely versatile, powerful tools, very user-friendly, and they sound great,’ he adds. ‘They’re fantastic outboard gear, definitely ones to have.’