After nearly two years on a world tour, Grammy Award winners Maroon 5 are still fine-tuning the configuration of the L-Acoustics line array system that serves FOH. FOH engineer Jim Ebdon typically begins comments with, ‘Well, at the moment…’
During that time – on what’s been billed as the Maroon V Tour or the M5OnTheRoad, and has so far passed through North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America – Ebdon has been tweaking the arrangement of the K1/K2 system’s components, finding tricks to make the system perform ever better.
The tour began in February 2015. Ebdon, who has also mixed front-of-house sound for Aerosmith, Annie Lennox and Matchbox Twenty, discovered that the L-Acoustics V-Dosc system that he had come to count on wasn’t available. ‘The V-Dosc was simply still so popular that one wasn’t always available – bands and production managers loved it,’ he recalls. ‘That first six months on the road [without L-Acoustics] was an interesting experiment…’
That summer, however, a K1/K2 system did become available, through Sound Image, the tour’s main SR vendor throughout. It began a Lego-like puzzle, with Ebdon and a series of system technicians trying out various configurations that changed over time. The system originally used two hangs of ten K1 per side with four to six K2 boxes slung underneath, depending on the size of the venue. More recently, the main arrays use 14 K1s per side with two K2s underneath, always powered and processed with LA8-equipped LA-Raks. In addition, there are 12 K2s per side for side fill, ten Kara boxes flown as rear fill for arenas and stadia, and six Kiva per side for front fill.
The low end is usually handled by ten groundstacked SB28 subs. However, Ebdon has recently taken to hanging additional K1-SB subs alongside the K1 hangs. ‘I used to think that would create too much bass in the roof when we put them on the top of the arrays,’ he explains. ‘But, on the sides, they really seemed to add a dimension. We started trying that on the South America leg of the tour. After we’d done a few shows like that, we left them off for a show and that’s when we realised that we really missed them. So now they’re part of the design.’
The K2s in particular have impressed their users on the tour. Lead vocalist (and The Voice star) Adam Levine spends much of the show traversing a 130ft-long stage thrust into the audience. Ebdon says the K2s are what he’s listening to from an FOH position that’s just 95 feet from the stage. ‘There’s been no feedback at all,’ he marvels, ‘even though we have so much audience cheering and singing along getting into his microphone.’
Ebdon acknowledges that it can be a challenging location but the alternative could put him virtually in a venue exit ramp: ‘I have to be careful,’ he jokes. ‘If I stand up, they might sell my seat.’
And the system’s Array Morphing tools, part of the LA-Network Manager EQ section, lets Ebdon adjust the sound for different array geometries and conditions of use to fit every venue with confidence. ‘I love the FIR filers and the array morphing tools,’ he says. ‘The system doesn’t need a lot of EQ to start with – it’s a very flat-sounding system, so what we put in is what we get out. But if I have to adjust the HF at all, I know that the rest of the system will stay in balance and in phase. It’s so easy to work with.’
That the sound system for such an immense and important world tour could withstand constant tinkering and keep on delivering world-class sound night after night is a testament to the K1 and K2 designs, says Ebdon. ‘It’s a great-sounding system and one that’s consistent and so easy to get around,’ he says. And with the tour planned to continue, running from early October through March 2017, there will be plenty of opportunities to see what else it can do.
