Going strong for nearly a quarter century (the group marks its 25th anniversary in 2016) the ever-inventive Dave Matthews Band has long been innovative — in terms of onstage performance, studio work and with the close relationship it maintains with its fans. Not only has the group encouraged non-commercial taping of its shows by audience members to share, but also offers a growing series of Live Trax recordings of performances, which is currently at #36, this most recent release featuring a 2015 summer U.S. tour stop recorded at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre in Elkhorn, WI.
The band also expanded its touring horizons in 2015 to new destinations, playing sold-out shows in Mexico earlier this year and more recently in Abu Dhabi and Poland.
Known for its annual summer-long tours, Dave Matthews Band concerts typically feature lengthy improvisational renditions of their songs, accompanied by an elaborate video and lighting show. But whether in the studio or onstage, the band keeps a focus on providing high-performance audio, again with a Meyer Sound LEO rig supplied by soundco Pro Media UltraSound for both the U.S. dates and supporting the just-completed European leg of the tour.
The U.S. portion of the summer run began on May 13 in Austin. After a couple weeks of rest following the last show in the U.S. tour — September 13 at the Ak-Chin Pavilion in Phoenix — the band did its first-ever show at the Du Arena on Abu Dhabi’s manmade Yas Island in the Arab Emirates on October 8. The European leg kicked off at the MEO arena in Lisbon Portugal on October 11, followed by stops in Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Poland (the band’s first-ever show in that country), The Netherlands, Belgium, France and the United Kingdom before wrapping up on November 13 [the same day as the Paris attacks] at the 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland.
The Pro Media Connection
Founded in 1978, Pro Media has a long history of handling high-profile installations as well as supporting tours and shows with artists that require nothing less than excellence and a passion for detail. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Martinez, CA, the company remains in operation under the original founder. Pro Media acquired UltraSound in 1999, becoming Pro Media UltraSound, and a brief selection of the company’s touring client roster over the years has included The Grateful Dead (since 1981, as well as 2015’s acclaimed “Fare Thee Well” outings), Luciano Pavarotti, The Three Tenors, Andrea Bocelli, Primus — and, of course, the Dave Matthews Band, a client for nearly a decade.
Pro Media UltraSound’s installation list is no less impressive, with a steady mix of educational institutions, corporate offices, performing arts centers, houses of worship, airports, convention centers, concert halls and auditoriums, as well as high-profile sports facilities, such as Levi’s Stadium (home of the San Francisco 49ers), Dodger Stadium, Lambeau Field, the Rose Bowl, Dallas Cowboys stadium and many more.
Historically, Pro Media UltraSound has enjoyed a close association with Meyer Sound Labs. And the Dave Matthews Band’s Meyer connection goes way back to its first major headline tour in 1996 with a Meyer MSL-3A conventionally powered loudspeaker system. Pro Media UltraSound has been working with the Dave Matthews Band since 2006, and Meyer’s LEO linear large-scale sound reinforcement system became the band’s P.A. of choice in 2013.
Hands Across the Water
In seeking a partner for the 20-city arena leg of the Dave Matthews Band’s 2015 European tour, Pro Media UltraSound worked with Victory Tour Production. With offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus (Denmark’s second-largest city) Victory Tour Production is one of Scandinavia’s leading providers of sound, light, staging, and technical event production services and supplied racks and stacks for the main P.A., while the system’s front-end, mixing and monitoring was brought over from the states by Pro Media UltraSound.
A key to that partnership actually came last year, when Victory Tour Production updated its rental inventory with two systems from Meyer’s LEO family, both LEO boxes and the more compact sibling, the LYON linear sound reinforcement system.
Turns out the LEO/LYON purchase made good sense for Victory Tour Production. “LEO’s power and long throw opens us to not only the largest stadium and festival shows in Denmark, but also to a wider market elsewhere in northern Europe,” said company project manager Frank Grønbæk. “And LYON’s size and weight is ideally suited to most shows in the relatively small Danish market.”
According to Tom Lyon, Pro Media UltraSound’s systems engineer on the tour, working with Victory Tour Production was a very good experience. “They have an almost identical inventory to ProMedia UltraSound and the gear was clean and packaged very well,” Lyon explains, “[Owner] Jesper Sørensen from Victory has a great system and great people working for him.”
The System
The touring audio production for the 20 dates on the indoor European tour was anchored by dual main arrays of 12 LEO-M and four LYON line array loudspeakers each. Twin side hangs were 10 LYON loudspeakers each, supplemented by eight M’elodie line array and six JM-1P arrayable loudspeakers as front and out fills, respectively.
Low-frequency reinforcement was handled by a combination of Meyer 1100-LFC Low-Frequency Control Elements and HP-700 subwoofers. According to Lyon, the sub complement “was a day to day variation based on the venue, but basically cardioid stacks either on the ground below or flown in the air behind the mains.” The cardioid sub array was typically comprised of a hang of six 1100-LFC’s on each side of the stage, with four front-facing and two rear-facing enclosures.
A Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system with one Galileo Callisto 616 AES and two Galileo Callisto 616 array processors facilitated system drive and optimization. Monitoring was a combination of Meyer Sound MJF-212a wedges and Sensaphonics 3D and 2X IEM’s, fed from Shure PSM1000 and PSM900 transmitters.
With tight schedules across multiple borders, time efficiency and setup speed was a critical element on the tour. “The system we’re carrying now is incredibly easy to rig and tune,” adds Lyon. “The ability to preset angles before flying is a major plus, and tuning can usually be accomplished with only a few U-Shaping adjustments.”
The FOH Viewpoint
“I find that LEO is so transparent that I can mix without worrying about problematic interactions within the system,” says Jeff Thomas, veteran front of house engineer for the Dave Matthews Band. “Rather than mixing in a defensive manner, I can focus on artistically, creating the ideal tonal balance. The low-mid directional characteristics of LEO and LYON also allow more gain before feedback and less interaction with Dave’s mic.”
Although the European shows were all indoors, Thomas also appreciated LEO’s power and control when playing outdoor amphitheaters in the U.S. this summer. “At places like Blossom Music Center and Saratoga Performing Arts Center, we had considerable success with LEO because of the system’s superior coverage, coherence and rear rejection,” he reports. “These venues are designed for orchestras, not amplified music, yet we’ve had fantastic shows thanks to LEO.”
Thomas mixed DMB on an Avid VENUE Profile console, with another Profile and an Avid VENUE SC48 used for monitors. The band used Shure UHF-R wireless microphones with Shure PSM 900 and PSM 1000 in-ear monitoring systems.
With festival appearances and occasional mandatory use of house systems, Thomas sometimes mixes DMB on other systems. “But it’s always nice coming back to LEO,” he remarks. “It’s like a Christmas miracle — there’s just nothing else like it.”
Dave Matthews Band European Tour 2015
Audio Crew
Sound Company: Pro Media UltraSound (Martinez, CA); Victory Tour Production (Aarhus, Denmark)
FOH Engineer: Jeff Thomas
Systems Engineer: Tom Lyon (Pro Media UltraSound)
Systems Engineer: Mads Nørgaard (Victory Tour Production)
Monitor Engineers: Ian Kuhn, Lonnie Quinn
RF Coordinator & Monitor Assistant: Greg Botimer
Recording Engineer: Joe Lawlor
Broadcast Engineer: Rob Evans
P.A. System
Main Speakers: (24) Meyer Sound LEO-M Line Arrays (12/side), with (4) Meyer Sound LYON/side
Side Hangs: Meyer Sound LYON (10/side) with Meyer Sound M’elodie (8/side)
Front/Out Fills: Meyer Sound JM-1P’s, Meyer Sound CQ-2 and Meyer Sound Minas
Subwoofers: Meyer Sound 1100-LFC and HP-700 subs, flown and/or stacked depending on venue requirements
Amplification: All self-powered
System Control/Drive: Meyer Sound Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system with one Callisto 616 AES and two Callisto 616 array processors.
FOH Gear
FOH Console: Avid Profile
Outboard: Metric Halo Mobile I/O 2882; MacPro with Pro Tools 10HD ; TASCAM CD player
Ancillary: Lenovo Thinkpad Laptops; Lectrosonics TM400 wireless measurement system; Rational Acoustics Smaart 7.5 software
Microphones : Neumann, Sennheiser, AKG, Shure, DPA, Crown, E-V, Audio-Technica and Earthworks
Monitor Gear
Monitor Consoles: Avid Profile and Avid SC-48
Outboard: MacPro with Pro Tools 10HD
IEM Earpieces: Sensaphonics 3D and 2X
Monitor Speakers : Meyer Sound MJF-212a wedges; Clark Synthesis Tactile Sound Transducer (thumper)
Drum Thumper Amplifier: FP-2400
IEM Hardware: Shure PSM-1000, Shure PSM-900
Wireless: Shure UHF-R with Professional Wireless GX-8 antenna combiner
Recording Gear
Front End: (82) API-212L mic preamps in (7) API-L200 racks
Platform: Avid Pro Tools 11 with (7) Avid HD I/O interfaces
