ZWAAG, THE NETHERLANDS — For the promotion of their latest album Feelin' Good, jazz artists Joe Sample (piano) and Randy Crawford (vocals) have been touring through Europe, accompanied by Joe's son Nick on (contra-) bass and Johnny Vidacovich on drums, reinforced by Alcons pro-ribbon line-arrays. For this tour, Paul Mitchell was both sound supervisor and tour manager. Mitchell has worked with David Sanborn and Marcus Miller and The Rembrandt's.
Mitchell states, "I always loved the smooth top-end of a specific brand that I've been working with for many years and never thought of the possibility that it could be beaten. I started my career in pro-audio in studio recording, with high-quality near-field monitoring. Being so close to the monitors, all details in the music are audible. Hearing the LR14s reminded me immediately of this near-field monitoring sound quality."
The system chosen was an LR14 pro-ribbon line-array, with nine LR14 + 3 units per side, driven by two ALC4 controller-amps on SDP processing modules. For larger halls, six LR16 units per side were used with two LR16B units, along with four LR14s as under-hang. The SR9s were used as front-fill.
Mitchell continues, "I do prefer an uncompressed sound; all audio today is so manipulated to sound big on your cell phone; in live music, especially Joe & Randy, the dynamics are incredible, and the 'space' in the arrangement is a very big part of the sound.."
Though Lünenburger company Profimusik (Germany) was called in for the sound reinforcement for the German leg of the European tour, they were asked to do the complete tour as a result of the sound quality and support, which was taken care of by Toby Lange on monitors and by his brother Florian Lange on FOH.
For more information, please visit: www.alconsaudio.com or www.proribbontechnology.com.
