Veteran American sound engineer Ken Newman carried on where he left off in the
States when Barry Manilow’s One Last Time tour arrived in the UK on its trip around
the globe — with Martin Audio’s premier MLA providing the arena sound.

Making his MLA debut with Delicate Productions’ system on the North American leg,
the sound engineer was adamant that he wanted the same production rider in the
UK — and his first port of call was Martin Audio rental partner, Capital Sound.

Capital supplied the rig, but unlike the previous dates, the ten UK shows had the
advantage of being run digitally. With MLA tech Russ Cunningham and PA/stage tech
Nick Cook in support, the main PA comprised 11 x MLA and an MLD Downfill each
side, while the sidefill component started with hangs of 12 x MLA Compact per side
but increased to 16 for the larger 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in London.

Flown in the rig, between the main and side PA, were three MLX subs — mostly set
at 45° to the main rig — while a further 14 W8LM Mini Line Arrays acted as
frontfills/outfills with four further MLX on the ground. This was pretty much an
identical rig to the system Delicate had put out.

After eulogizing the system performance in the States Ken Newman was equally
elated with the slightly supercharged production tools made available to him in the
UK, including an uprated DiGiCo console which brought the best out of MLA.

The sound engineer had first been introduced to MLA by colleagues, Mark Frink and
Harold Blumberg. “They had been telling me about this amazing new speaker
system for a while,’ he said. “I attended a seminar on Multicellular Loudspeakers at
the 2014 AES Convention and pursued the idea of using MLA for Barry Manilow’s
shows without even hearing the system.’

Whenever he is supporting a tour in the US that goes to the UK, Jason Alt of
Delicate Productions turns to Capital Sound. “It was therefore a huge relief when we
learnt that we could use Capital’s MLA with the upgraded production,’ states
Newman.

A generic optimization had been evolved with system tech Phil Reynolds on the
North American leg — “settings which worked both for audience coverage,
maximum gain before feedback and Barry’s comfort level on stage’. With Cap’s ace
system tech Toby Donovan only available for the first show Russ Cunningham
headed over from the States to run the entire tour. “Russ not only checked with our
US MLA tech, Nate Lettus, but was extremely accommodating in terms of system
design and implementation, and offered new optimization curves based on what he
saw me doing each day on the Lake processors. We implemented those curves and
the system sounded even better than it had in the US.’

Summing up, the sound engineer said, “Being able to run the system digitally was
advantageous in terms of overall sound quality while the noise floor was simply
non-existent. I feel Capital really spoiled me.’