GLASGOW, SCOTLAND — Since releasing their debut album Costello Music last autumn, the Glasgow band The Fratellis have been promoting it with live dates. Helping them on their way has been Turbosound, whose NuQ loudspeakers have played a major part in the band’s recent UK tour. Consisting of 12 dates in Nottingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and London, SSE supplied the tour’s audio requirements with Britannia Row supplying the monitor system, including Turbosound NuQ-15s, self-powered TA-500DP Aspect Wides and, in Glasgow and London, self-powered NuQ-12DPs.
The Fratellis like the sound levels on stage to be relatively high, so one three-way TA-500DP was used each side of the stage as a sidefill, along with nine 15-inch two-way bi-amped NuQ-15s on the stage as wedge monitors — three pairs across the front, one each side of the drummer and one by bass guitarist Barry Fratelli’s backline equipment.
“Turbosound’s development director, Dominic Harter, suggested I try the NuQ-15s, partly because they have similar performance to the TFM-450s but are a little lighter,” says the band’s monitor engineer Antony King. “And the band really liked them. What I like is the fact that you can move away from them, but you can still hear that they’re there — the sound doesn’t just disappear as it does with many monitors.”
For the Glasgow and London dates of the Fratellis tour, a brass trio was added and a pair of NuQ-12DP series monitors was added to the rig. This gave the NuQ12-DPs a workout in an environment with high sound levels and allowed King to use the software for control and test the system.
“I was surprised at how well they performed,” he says. “When I first saw them I thought 15s would be required, but the 12s acquitted themselves very well.”
For more information, visit www.turbosound.com.
