A Big Show Goes Immersive and Wins Rave Reviews
Originally slated for early 2022, but then postponed, Adele’s much-anticipated residency show at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas has generated rave reviews since its Nov. 18, 2022 debut. Weekends with Adele, which was scheduled for every Friday and Saturday night from Nov. 18 through March 25 (with just a two-weekend break after Adele’s New Year’s Eve show) has been lauded as “breathtaking” (The New York Times) and “spectacular, intimate and worth the wait” (The Times, London, UK).
The main draw, of course, is an astonishingly talented vocalist, who was just awarded her 16th Grammy Award for Best Pop Solo Performance for her 2021 song, “Easy on Me,” which was honored at the 2023 ceremony on Feb. 5. This minimally-produced pop ballad, accompanied with just a piano and some bass beats, is emblematic of Adele’s knack for coming up with lyrics, vocal delivery and a vulnerable-yet-strong personality onstage that resonates with concertgoers.
Although just 34 years old, Adele’s talents have been a magnet for a dizzying array of accolades. In the 15 years since her first album was released, in addition to her 16 Grammy wins, Adele has been honored with 12 Brit Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. The 2011, 2012, and 2016 Billboard Artist of the Year was also named Songwriter of the Year in 2012 and 2016 at the Ivor Novello Awards. Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world in 2012, 2016, and 2022. She was appointed a Member of Order of the British Empire (MBE) at the 2013 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to music.
A Big — Yet Intimate — Show
Weekends With Adele is a big show, and the artist shares the stage with a full band and three backing singers. Those lucky enough to get a ticket get treated to a band that expands from six to more than two dozen players and three backing singers joined by a full choir. But the main draw is Adele’s voice, and helping to enhance her artistic flair is a fully immersive sound system using L-Acoustics’ L-ISA technology.
“Adele is very aware of the importance of sound quality — it’s always been a high priority on her earlier tours,” says Johnny Keirle (pronounced like “curl”), the production’s system engineer, who began touring with Adele in 2016 and has also worked on past tours with Billie Eilish and P!NK in similar roles. “We began the conversation about using L-ISA early on with Adele and her management team.” There had been some initial caution on the subject of budget, yet a demo of the system in London followed by further discussions with production manager Paul English very quickly led to a decision that the immersive environment that L-ISA brings would add a valuable and unparalleled sense of intimacy to her performances.
“With tight load-in and out times of only 72 hours, this production is quite literally a 40-truck stadium show being staged in a remarkably intimate 4,100-capacity theater each weekend,” says English. “But the size of the room is only part of the equation. L-ISA gives us the best quality sound for this show and perfectly helps foster Adele’s personal connection with her audiences.”
The System Setup
Supplied by Clair Global, Weekend With Adele’s L-ISA Scene system, which comprises the body of the mix and the focal point of the performance, features L-Acoustics K2 loudspeakers configured in seven arrays. Kara in two hangs make up the Extension arrays and out-fills. KS28 subwoofers, in two columns, are hung directly behind the center K2 array, and more ground-stacked subs are deployed in a distributed line across and underneath the downstage edge. Compact 5XT spatial fills are distributed across and in front of the downstage edge, along with larger X8s deployed as out-fills. All are powered by LA12X amplified controllers, and the system is managed by an L-Acoustics P1 processor and L-ISA Processor II units. The signal is distributed over a Milan-AVB network via a combination of L-Acoustics LS10 and Luminex AVB switches.
Keirle was new to L-ISA himself, but he says the online training he took while home in New Zealand got him up to speed and confident quickly. “The L-Acoustics Application team were very accommodating,” he says. “We did the training online over Teams, where I learned the practical and theoretical aspects of immersive audio, and I felt comfortable with L-ISA as soon as I walked into rehearsals.”
Immersive Collaboration
Along with the L-ISA system, Britannia Row and Clair Global are providing two DiGiCo Quantum7 consoles to support Adele’s first-ever immersive audio environment. And FOH engineer Dave Bracey has been working with Keirle to develop a way to optimize the mix. Keirle created a combination of automated and manual movements for each song in the processors, while Bracey concentrated on perfecting the mix of the vocals, band and orchestra.
“Johnny and I collaborate through L-ISA in a very unique way — it’s not the typical relationship between a front of house and system engineer, and he’s not doing a typical system engineering role,” Bracey explains. “He has creative input into the show’s sound. We discussed how we should approach every song in the set, and he created a series of automated and manual snapshots that fit the song and the production. He takes my mix and places it into the Scene, creating an immersive template that I’m mixing into. It’s a very new way to approach a live music mix, and it’s thrilling.”
It’s a good approach to immersive sound in general, Keirle believes. “This is something we discussed early on: the key to making an immersive mix effective is using the technology sparingly and subtly,” he says. “You allow the audience to get accustomed to one level of it, then you increase the intensity, changing and broadening the image. Once the audience’s ears and eyes are settled, they’ll notice the slight changes you’re progressively making to the sound, moving her voice back into the instruments and then pulling it forward. Even small moves can make for a very emotional and effective contrast.”
Keirle says the mixing and system engineering roles are distinct but integrated into the immersive L-ISA environment. “We haven’t worked in this kind of environment before, so we developed our methodology as we went along,” he says. “It needs people dedicated to each role. I’m focused the entire time on the processing and positioning of the sound — taking 96 post-fader feeds from the FOH console and determining parameters like depth and width — while Dave is completely focused on the console and the mix, not worrying about the processing behind it. It’s a workflow we established during rehearsals, looking at how L-ISA befitted each individual song and building around that.”
Signal Distribution
Keirle has plenty of engineering to manage at FOH. From Bracey’s DiGiCo Quantum7 house audio console, he has Optocore DD4MR-FX digital I/O and interface units as part of the optical control loop. Channels are sent from the console, via direct outs, to the DD4MRs, where they output as optical MADI. The optical MADI is received by an RME MADI Bridge, which outputs MADI over BNC to both the primary and secondary L-ISA Processor II units. For output signal distribution from the processors to the amplified controllers, the LA12X take Milan AVB from a series of LS10 and Luminex GigaCore 26i and 14R AVB distributed network switches.
“AVB also feeds directly from each L-ISA Processor into my AVB V-LAN, and I have each L-ISA Processor outputting MADI into a second RME MADI Bridge as well,” Keirle explains. “This outputs optical MADI to various Ferrofish A32 converters. The RME MADI Bridge acts as an input matrix, and the Ferrofish A32s convert the chosen MADI stream to analog, which feeds the analog inputs of the LA12X amplified controllers.”
In terms of philosophy, Keirle and Bracey follow Adele’s dynamic cues, generally starting songs quietly — often with just a solo piano and voice — keeping the immersive soundstage relatively tapered and focused center stage. The soundscape then widens and deepens as additional musicians and sounds are introduced and revealed.
The FOH View
Bracey credited the DiGiCo Quantum7 for helping make it all happen. “It’s so easy to create an elegant workflow on this console, which lets you concentrate fully on the mix. I make good use of the Mustard parallel compression I’m using on her vocal and the FET Compressor on the bass, for instance. The Spice Rack also has some very nice tools, such as the dynamic EQ that I apply to her vocal. But what’s amazing is that anything I’m using is with a very light touch; if you were to look, for instance, at the channel EQ on the screen, you’d have to squint to see any deviation from flat. That’s how good the vocal chain in the console itself sounds.”
Bracey has worked and toured with Adele for much of the last ten years, after stints with Depeche Mode and the Cure in the 1990s, and later with Robbie Williams, Björk, Massive Attack, and P!NK, among others. Ten weeks into the weekends-only schedule, they haven’t yet had to move out to let the venue be used by another production during their breaks, but he estimates that it will be at least a four-day affair when that time does come. “It’s Vegas, so it has to be more magnificent than the other shows, right?” he says. “The Quantum7 lets me handle it all without a problem.”
In Monitor World
Monitor engineer Joe Campbell, who has worked with Adele for a dozen years, as well as stints with Seal, Ellie Goulding and One Direction’s Niall Horan, was also pleased to have the Quantum7 in front of him again. “I’ve been using the SD7 for years, and I went with the Quantum upgrade as soon as it came out,” he says. “It’s just a natural progression.”
Campbell cites the console’s routing and work surface flexibility, but emphasizes that it’s the Mustard processing that’s become particularly useful for him. “Especially the Mustard optical compressor, which I find I’m using all the time, on vocals especially,” he says. “This console allows me access to parallel compression on every input and output channel. What that can do for dynamics is amazing.”
While he’s using the Quantum7’s onboard processing, such as reverb and dynamic EQ, for virtually every channel, Campbell still brings his favorite outboard pieces — four Bricasti Design Model 7 stereo reverb processors — with him, for use on vocals and acoustic guitars. “It’s easy to integrate external processors into the Quantum7, just like it’s easy to do almost anything on this console,” he says. “If someone on stage wants an extra mix and wants it now, I can do it. There is nothing else like the Quantum out there.”
Like Bracey, Campbell sings the praises of the Quantum7’s sonics, which, they will both tell you, let Adele’s vocals do what they’ve done so well. “I’ve got virtually no EQ on her vocal in the monitor mix for her IEMs,” he says. “She sounds fantastic, and the Quantum7 doesn’t put anything between her and the monitors. It’s about as transparent as it gets.”
The 32-show Weekends with Adele residency plays weekends at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace and wraps with a final performance on March 25, 2023.
