Nexo Alpha was one of a number of choices of PA offered by the Liverpool based company, and chosen jointly by Adlib's systems engineer Chris Sudall and González' FOH engineer Don Alsterberg. "It's a particularly good system for acoustic work, great in the low mids and overall it has a very musical sound - I love it" says Alsterberg, who is working for the first time with Adlib.
The system was also designed to be highly versatile, with a wide range of venues on the itinerary - from city halls and large theatres to smaller more intimate concert type venues. They're using a total of 32 boxes including highs, bass and subs. The full rig is eight Nexo Alpha M3 highs a side, six B1 bass boxes and four S2 subs - four M3s and two B1s a side are flown, with the rest ground stacked. It's powered by Camco Vortex 6s for the low end and Tecton 32.4s for the highs.
Alsterberg chose a Midas XL3 desk as his front of house console because it is extremely easy to work and very quick to set up. Sudall adds that the fabulous warm Midas EQ is also a great asset to González' haunting style of music.
He's using a standard TC M2000 reverb and a TC D2 delay out front. Two SPX 990's are also in the rack and used occasionally. González plays some of the set solo, and is joined at times by a conga and percussion player.
"It's back to basics really," says Sudall, adding that there's not really any trickery required, they just let the music speak for itself. The system is processed with Nexo NX242s, and a BSS Omnidrive does the delays and basic processing. Adlib has also supplied BSS graphics and dbx 160 and 1066 compressors.
González' vocal mic is a Shure Beta 58A wired. There's also some ambient mics scattered around the foot area and some special Swedish pressure mics on the guitar to boost the acoustic levels up enough to be heard across the larger venues.
Monitor world is looked after by Adlib's Richy Nicholson, who chose a Yamaha PM5D for his console because he wanted a small footprint and something that was light and maneuverable. He likes working in the digital domain and takes every opportunity to do so, finding the desk and the scene functions user-friendly and logical. Nicholson is using a dbx 480 Drive Rack for crossovers.
It's more about getting a nice vibe onstage than blasting sound out he explains, which makes a nice change for a monitor engineer!
Wedges are 10 of Adlib's newest MP3 low profile boxes, run by Crown amps. They're arranged into four pairs with González stationed between two - one in front of him and one behind - with separate pairs for vocals and guitar.
Adlib have also supplied Neumann condenser mics used on the guitar and on the foot pick up to catch some atmospheric tapping and a Piezo mic that fits to the guitar body to capture the vibrations. There's also a lavaliere style, mic just under the guitar strings to accentuate different tones. Alsterberg has various different sonic 'cheats' under his belt that subtly increase the guitar volume beyond the thresholds of standard acoustic music - which would otherwise get lost in voluminous venues.
He's really enjoying working with Adlib "They are the best ever," he says, "extremely pleasant people, very knowledgeable and helpful, and I hope to be working with this company a lot more in the future."
(Chris Henry)
