Manic Tour Sound Design
As discussions became more serious about the ‘next tour’ and venues were confirmed, Simon (Halsey’s FOH Engineer) and I had noticed we weren’t in for a standard arena tour.
Not long after seeing what we were in for, we had a meeting with the show designers, Moment Factory. As the actual stage design was still in its infancy we got in as early as possible and expressed our ‘needs’ and they expressed theirs. Something very important for us at FOH is having the PA as far away as possible from the mic and without compromise for anyone attending the show. This helps in monitor world too!
After speaking with James from Moment Factory, it became clear the band wasn’t going to be in the ‘normal’ place and Ashley (Halsey) was going to be going up and down on automated stair segments. Once grasping quite was needed from us in our design (apart from giving the audience a memorable and sonically pleasing show) we went to the drawing board.
Something that has become more important on this album cycle is the range of genres being played in the same show. Halsey is know for being a ‘pop star’ with a large repertoire of soft and bubbly pop songs, however a big part of the Manic tour is anything but that, including songs co written with the renowned metal band Bring Me The Horizon.
I started with all the sold maps of the venues, this was quite eye opening. We had a vast range of venues from 2000 people in Norway to the sold out 02 Arena in London (15,000) and everything in between.
I had a few key criteria to work to
The PA has to be able to be flown well out the way. This is to get out of sight lines and keep it away from the band and the Mic.
Light (a lot of the venues had big weight restrictions and there was a lot of other things going on (video, Lighting, Automation)
Flown subs. The controlled reproduction of low end is very important to me and as most modern music relies on it to portray the songs it’s imperative the whole audience (even those at the back) need to have a full range experience
Flexible. We became very aware that these venues were different from the next and we needed to provide a full size sonic experience to ALL fans at every show, even if we could only get half the PA in the room.
Tonal blank canvas. The PA needs to be able to represent all genres in the one show. It needs to handle the precise midrange of angry guitars and provide the ‘pop shine’ in the high end one song after the other.
• Efficient use of truck space. Truck space was very tight on this tour, as we were doing some small venues and some large, it made no financial or logistical sense to have 2 trucks of PA.
After many hours or conversation and doing predictions for all potential Systems, Simon made the call on L-Acoustics.
A few key reasons for this were
Fidelity. The L-Acoustic system sounds great when designed and applied in line with the specific show. It is known for the superb and musical low end provided by the K1 and it’s famous for precise, faithful and mouldable High Frequency Response. Both of these points put it right in the sweet spot for pop music.
Tonal blank canvas. L-Acoustics K1/K2 system is well known for amplifying all genres of music and doing them all well. On top of that, LA Network Manager provides a very accessible and powerful front end allowing me to sculpt the tone of the PA in Seconds.
Flexibility. Ideally, the rig would have been all K1 and a few K2 hung on the bottom. In Reality main hang was 4xK1 and 12xK2 with 8xK1sb’s hung behind (or next to). However, this varied, some shows were 4xK1sb and 6xK2. Some venues we put KARA under the K2 to get around the weight issues.
Flown Subs, The flexibility with the K1sb as the flown sub meant it could be interchanged with the K1 on the main hang for less weight. They are lighter than the KS28 when flown and aren’t a big eye sore.
After the first leg of the tour we believe that the K1/K2 System from L-Acoustics was the right choice for that tour as it allowed us to navigate around the restrictions of many of the venus, provide a show that was consistent and pleased Halsey’s management and music director every night.
