Harman’s Gert Sanner (ex- FOH engineer for Deep Purple) says AED was a key company to get onboard as it is responsible for supplying gear to a large chunk of the European market. “Large-scale PA systems no longer consist of big, cumbersome boxes; what everyone is trying to do is increase the flexibility of their systems, so it’s now all about trying to create systems that can carry out a bigger workload, so are less specialised,” Sanner explains. “At JBL, the goal is to have two or three boxes that can do the whole job, whereas in the past, manufacturers weren’t shy of bringing out six or more different systems. “There is no reason why a couple or so boxes can work for the whole market, and this is being driven by the rental companies too: they’re not going to buy a system that will only rent four times a year. We now
Adamson E15s on the
North American tour of Rob Zombie
have companies that specialise in just dry hire, and that hasn’t happened in the past.”
ROARING SUCCESS Five European rental companies now offer the new
LEO system from Meyer Sound: AVAB CAC in Norway; Dushow; Starlight in Sweden; POOL Group in Germany; and the UK’s Major Tom. It was Starlight and AVAB CAC that first introduced the
LEO system to the European festival scene for Way Out Festival last August in Gothenburg; and LEO is currently being used on Cirque du Soleil’s Michael Jackson: The Immortal world tour, a Solotech production.
Meyer Sound’s touring liaison, Lee Moro, who was also long-time FOH engineer for Norah Jones, says the growing demand for LEO from hire companies parallels LEO’s growing reputation among top-rank FOH engineers on both sides of the Atlantic. “We’re going out of our way to get FOH engineers to one-on- one demos,” he says. “They can bring multitrack virtual sound check files and take time to mix and to listen. Just in the last few weeks I’ve heard at least six of them, from America and Europe, say they will add LEO to riders for their acts.” Also on the 2013 riders, Meyer Sound says, is the new Galileo Callisto 616 array processor, which is said to ‘upgrade’ existing MILO users’ rigs.
“Both Callisto and the 100-
LFC low-frequency control unit represent a substantial upgrade to MILO and MICA systems; we expect both will be fixtures as main systems for summer