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Country superstar Kenny Chesney is one of the biggest concert attractions in the world, although he rarely leaves North America. Each of his tours – 13 since he began headlining in 2002 – has sold in excess of a million tickets; the current 2015 Big Revival Tour passed the million ticket mark before the first note of music was even played.
Production audio – as well as lighting – is provided by Nashville-based Morris Light and Sound. Working with Chesney’s front-of-house engineer Chris Rabold, they have pioneered the use of NEXO’s STM Series modular line array to deliver in such large venues.
The 2015 Big Revival Tour marks ML&S and Rabold’s second outing with NEXO. Chesney’s regularised tour schedule – playing many of the same venues, with the same crew and the same rental provider – has provided near-scientific conditions for judging the development of NEXO’s radical modular system over the first 3 years of its life. The most visible of changes this year is the inclusion of a new downfill cabinet to the system.
The M28 module was added to the STM Series at the end of last year, and FOH engineer Chris Rabold describes it as “ the missing piece of the puzzle. One of its primary uses for us is as a downfill, but I don’t think of it as a traditional downfill box at all – it’s an extension, which is voiced very similarly to the M46 main cabinet, so it’s just giving us that extra bit at the bottom of the array.
And it is very, very controllable ; I can manipulate it if I choose to, but a lot of the time I really don’t need to because it’s so seamless and smooth. “
Morris Light & Sound was the first major rental company to put STM onto a premium tour.
This year, they increased their already substantial investment, adding the M28 modules to its inventory.
ML&S systems engineer John Mills says :
“ the M28s are a problem-solver. Because the M46s are so powerful, we found ourselves wanting to turn them down, but of course if you do that, you break the line array.
M28 has acoustically less output, so it’s the right box to have on the bottom of the line.
When you walk between the seam, and it changes boxes, you would expect something fairly significant to happen, but from M46 to M28 is a very, very smooth transition. ”
ML&S has moved some of its new M28 inventory to the delay towers, using anywhere between 12-16 per hang, depending on the venue.
The high frequency output power of this small STM cabinet has impressed John Mills.
“ I can basically do whatever I want with it. When we first made the move from our previous rig to the NEXO system, we had 16 delay boxes back here; we now have 12, and I’ve turned them down!
“ The throw of the system is unbelievable. We have done a few shows where we’ve had to throw 500-feet with no delays, and STM does it. Incredibly, it still sounds fairly hi-fi in the back, too. Sure, you have your physics of air loss, but it still sounds better than anything at distance, and the vocal still sounds like it’s right in front of you. It’s pretty unreal. ”
Chesney’s tour plays 23 NFL football stadiums, but it also moves through sheds and arenas. “ System configuration does differ quite a bit, but only in numbers of boxes, never audio,” says John Mills.
“ Two nights ago, for example, I was 18 and 2 on the mains, and now we’re 24 and 2, so that’s going to change the array length and low mid section of it.
Then last night we were 18 and 3; and we’ve done smaller still, such as a 12 and 3.
So it’s scaling almost in half in some of our venues, but the beauty of STM is, it really does translate.
Array length will change some low frequency, and how much there is of it, but tonally, this system is really exceptional, and consistent. ”
ML&S is rightly proud of the fact that, at the time of writing, there have been ZERO audio refunds for well over 1 million tickets.
System specification for Heinz Field, Pittsburgh :
- Main hangs: 24x M46 + 24x B112 + 2x M28 x2
- Subbass: 24x S118 flown x2, 24 groundstacked across centre
- Aux hangs: 15x M46 + 15xB112 + 3x M28 x2
- 270 hangs (90° offstage for the side and back, at the top): 12x M28 x2
- Delays: 12x M28 x2
- NEXO NUARs featuring NXAMPs
- Everything run on fibre via Dante
More information : Morris Light & Sound http://experiencemorris.com/ et Nexo http://nexo-sa.com/en/
