Having chalked up 60 album releases with the recent Soundtrack of My Life, Donny Osmond embarked on a tour to promote it – and revisit a selection of his five decades in music.
Tour manager and FOH engineer Chris Acton found himself at the helm of a Martin Audio MLA supplied by Capital Sound. The engineer and hire service had worked together on Donny & Marie’s UK tour two years ago, after being hooked up by event production company, LarMac Live. Although more familiar with other systems, he was a ready convert to MLA’s multi-cellular array technology, which was used on all dates except the Eventim Apollo – the only theatre on the itinerary.
Typically, 12 MLA elements and two MLD Downfill were set per side, with four forward-facing MLX subwoofers per side all, accompanied by hangs of 12 MLA Compact per side for out fill and eight DD12 for front fill.
‘The Martin Audio system has a brighter, smoother high end, more powerful low end than I am used to, and puts the vocal right in my face,’ Acton reports. ‘MLA proved to be an excellent recommendation. It’s powerful and he when it needs to be – such as in the rock classic ‘Crazy Horses’ – but at the same time allows me a good deal of finesse, when run quieter.
‘We have needed a lot of SPL to get over the screaming fans – and MLA has done it with ease and grace,’ he adds. ‘The PA is like driving a sports car, requiring just subtle EQ.’
An established member of the Osmond entourage, Acton replaced regular sound man Lucas ‘Rico’ Corrubia following illness, and readily recognises‘the world class team behind me’: ‘When I walk in, the PA is already tuned the way I like it, and all I have to do is push some faders.’
He is referring to Cap crew chief Robin Conway, monitor techs Marty Beath and Barney Cushman, and system tech Toby Donovan. ‘Capital has done due diligence to ensure each room is measured correctly. Aside from recommending MLA from the brands that they could have presented [account manager] Martin Connolly also upgraded our Yamaha desk to a CL5 when we realized we needed 61 input channels.’
This meets the requirements of the four-piece band and playback tracks triggered by QLab, as well as time-coded video.
The sound engineer credits Robin Conway for putting together a five-page Dante bible. ‘I have used Dante a lot on my corporate events but it’s the first time I’ve toured with a full Dante [distribution system] with everything on the same network – and it’s been a wild success,’ he says.
Changing stage heights positions and trim heights meant that Tony Donovan was regularly taking new measurements for the MLA set-up, and in may cases had to react on the fly. ‘He is making modifications in the [Display] software as we go along so that I am always in the same environment as I was in the soundcheck even though humidity changes as the place fills up,’ Acton explains. ‘And with the artist spending so much time in front of the PA, moving rapidly across to the side bleachers, and out into the house to glad hand fans, he has needed to remain alert.
‘With this high degree of audience participation we are constantly kept on our toes so I may suddenly need to refer to Smaart [analysis software], or dive onto a Lake processor,’ Donovan says.
Ultimately the fans expect to hear the music they grew up with exactly as it should sound: ‘Vocally, I wanted the PA I chose to be able to throw to the back of the arena, to provide the thump and bass that my artist would want and achieve the clarity through the mid and high – so I knew I was asking a lot of this system,’ Acton says. ‘Not only does it deliver that, but we get plenty of SPL without really touching the PA – there is headroom for days. In fact, there’s 10-12kHz here that I’m just not used to hearing and the definition in the high end at 125ft back is amazing as is the clarity in the extreme highs. This HF can’t be discounted when you pitch as high as Donny Osmond.’
‘We jumped into MLA feet first and it’s been a perfect solution,’ he closes. ‘I can’t imagine better – and I know this PA has kept Donny more than happy.’
