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Heart Wrench

Posted by Dave Rat on

Oh so many things going on. Probably the most life affecting adventure for me coming up is a 10 week US tour with Blink 182. Ten or so years ago, I was mixing Blink 182 as they grew from clubs to arena's before returning to do a Peppers tour. Here we are a decade later and it is pretty cool to join them again for a North America shed and arena run. We are going to be moving fast and covering lots of ground with over 40 shows.

So what is the plan rubber band? I have been putting some thought into sound, as one in my position would and pondering what if anything outside of the norm I could or should do. The double hung PA worked amazingly well on Peppers and I am a bit remiss to return to a single hung system.

But hey, each band/tour has unique aspects and based on the dynamics at hand, I have different plan this time out. But, while we are speaking of double hung PA's though, check this out!

 

U2 is doing a stadium tour in the round. Check out that PA, notice anything? There are 3 PA hangs, 2 hangs of Clair full range boxes inside and a hang of Clair subs to the outsides.

Well alright, U2 is touring with a double hung PA, how cool is that! Well actually that would be four double hung PA's. My good friends MC and Paddy who are out with Snow Patrol were kind enough to give me the low down. And yes, it is truly being run the same way as we did on the Peppers with the vocals in one system and the instruments divided between the two systems. That rules, the largest tour in the world right now has a double hung PA! And the desire to shout "see, I am not crazy after all!" while running around doing a naked victory dance is very tempting.

But back from the past, lets look at now and Rat has this cool new L'Acoustics K1 rig that I know is louder and clearer than V-Dosc. Blink is an energetic fun rocking band, so from a sound perspective, I am going to approach it from a clean and simple angle. Nope, no double hung this run. I am excited to take the K1 toy out and see what it can do in a conventional setup before I go getting all wacky with concepts. I am thinking that the new K1 system and it's added clarity and volume, may be able to give the double hung V-Dosc rig a run for it's money.

But I get bored to easy not to do something special so I have been working some sub layout designs, trying to fine tune and improve the sub cannons so if your interested in that sort of stuff, I will post more on later. Also, I have finally put together a little system for measuring venue acoustics in various locations so I can see setups and coverage works as predicted.

In the mean time, the storm before the calm sets in as I realize some sad goodbyes and bearing down upon me. October! , yikes, wont be home till October, that is a rough concept to get my head around, anyway, my little pals that are gals that are going starting high school before I get home.

Meet Taco the little dog pal my daughters have convinced to adopt me and has been hanging tough and keeping my company.

And without looking back cause it hurts my heart, off and away for many days in far away places.

 

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Scotty on :

Commuting from Reno to the Sac/Sleeptrain show. Floor tix, plus awesome bands, plus great sound=sweeeet. In the event you have time at some point before or after the show, I totally owe you a beer for keeping me entertained for so long. (Shame though, there arent a lot of bars around sleeptrain...I think? Who knows.)

Carlos on :

Can u explain a little more on the u2 set up , there are 6 hangs per side how are they configured?

Dave Rat on :

From what I know, there is a sub hang to the outside and two I5 hangs inside of that. I think they use Vocals and guitars in one hang and bass and drums in the other as a starting point.

Matt Yohe on :

"think they use Vocals and guitars in one hang and bass and drums in the other as a starting point." - Dave Rat Does that mean that the vocals/guitars are on one side and bass/drums on the other? I would assume the interpretation would be vocals/guitars on the inner hangs (inner = closest to center stage) and the bass/drums on the outer I5 hangs (which makes sense for coupling with the outer subwoofer hangs). General question, why did you decide to use double hangs on Chili Peppers? Was it for more level, throw, cool factor, all the above?

Gertjan Koning on :

Dave Rat wote:"so if your interested in that sort of stuff" Yes I am.

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