Philip Harvey, front of house engineer for Medeski, Martin and Wood, had the opportunity to take a Q-factor 212 array out for a spin during the first leg of the bandÍs midwestern tour.
Performing in support of their latest release, Uninvisible, the jazz experimentalists appeared in concert at a number of soft-seater venues -- the Yaxis array being used for seven of those dates between April 9th and the 19th. Atomic Professional Audio of Rutland, VT, who has had the Yaxis in their inventory for the past year and a half, supplied the system.
"The Q-factor 212 line array system exhibits unprecedented audio clarity and imaging with an efficient, low-profile enclosure design, said Philip Harvey. coaxial waveguide technology, the Y10s produce continuous, linear full-spectrum sound coverage with practically zero distortion. Precision hardware makes flown or stacked rigging configurations a rapid setup for even the most challenging FOH audio applications."
According to Harvey, configuring and flying the system was a breeze. Total time involved to load in, hang the system, time up the subs and fills and eq the system was ñan hour and a half at the most with one gifted tech (Evan McElhinney of Atomic) and four local crew. We definitely relied on the Yaxis Shooter for angle and aim, utilizing Atomic KevinÍs (Kevin Margolin of Atomic Professional Audio) magic numbers. Sub and nearfill alignment and analysis was done with Spectrafoo.î
System Technician Evan McElhinney said, ñI woke up every day, grabbed my laptop and measured rooms. Using the Yaxis Shooter software, we came up with great aims Æ sometimes in difficult environments. From that point on, it was all about making it happen. I knew every day that, come show time, people would hear natural, consistent sound. It was the best feeling to hear people rave about the sound as they were leaving the shows.î
Eight 212s per side were flown for the majority of shows, with fewer boxes ground stacked in clubs and no-fly theaters. In addition to the 16 Q-factor 212s, four McCauley 2x18 subwoofers per side and a total of four McCauley SM95 15î concentric wedges rounded out the PA. Equalization for the system was achieved with the XTA GQ600 dual channel eq (FOH), a Symetrix 5-band parametric for the subs, and White InstrumentsÍ 4856 dual channel 1/3 octave eq (fills). Midas consoles were used throughout the tour Æ a Heritage 3000 at the FOH position, and a Midas XL250 for monitors.
MMW record most of their live performances, so their racks included three Metric Halo 8-channel Mobile I/O 2882 DSP+, one Metric Halo 2-channel Mobile I/O ULN2, and an Apple 17" G4 PowerBook, allowing for 24-track digital recording capability. Compression was via two dBx 160A comp/limiters, DrawmerÍs DL251 spectral compressor, a dBx 566 dual-channel vacuum tube compressor, and three Drawmer DL241 auto compressors. Effects processing consisted of a Yamaha Rev 7 digital reverb and two SPX990 digital multi-effects processors, a Lexicon PCM81digital effects processor and the TC Electronic D-Two multitap rhythm delay.
