Il Divo’s Amor & Pasión tour relies on Outline
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Following the very successful UK and European legs, for which London-based Capital Sound supplied their Outline GTO C-12 system, the north American shows were handled by Special Event Services (SES) of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A long-time user of Outline systems, SES added GTO C-12 to their inventory for the tour.
SES vice-president Jason Farah describes his company’s experiences with the GTO C-12 on tour with Il Divo. “SES has enjoyed Outline's GTO for years but this was our first tour with the C-12 system. I can tell you that, where GTO is unsurpassed as a large-format stadium-capable system, the C-12 is even better suited for theatre (and likely arena) deployments. Our system tech, Bryan Kiger, who was familiar with the GTO, was quite pleasantly surprised when he first setup and ran initial test tracks through the C-12.
“Clearly, Outline have refined the Linear-Phase presets for the C-12, and the initial ‘out of the box’ experience is a sonic marvel. Bryan was impressed at how little he had to do to tune the system to a particular room. I completely concur. Outline has done a wonderful job making C-12 sound fabulous right from the start - rich, potent, and with the silky smooth highs that Outline is known for. In a theatre setting, it was the most hi-fi experience, much like sitting at home listening to my reference system.”
Jason continues, “The system we carried for the Il Divo theatre run consisted of twelve Outline C-12 over a single Outline GTO-DF (down-fill module) flown per side from the GTO Lightweight Fly Frame. We deployed eight Outline GTO-LIPF lip-fills across the front of the stage, adding two Outline Mantas on the outer edges of the stage when needed, plus four Outline LAB21-HS subwoofers per side, ground-stacked.
“All amplification was via Powersoft K8s, and each amp rack had a Lake LM26 loaded with the latest Linear-Phase presets for the C-12 and the other components as well. Front-end-processing was via Lake LM44. In addition to the FOH system, the stage monitoring was also all Outline - the 12 wedges were all Outline SM212s, powered by Powersoft K8s and the flown side-fills were six Outline Mantas per side.”
Manning FOH for Il Divo was Matteo Cifelli whose long experience with the act meant some unusual system designs - Jason adds, “An interesting choice for near field deployment was that Matteo requested they be done in stereo pairs, such that no matter where anyone was seated on the front rows, they had stereo imaging from the GTO LIPF Lipfills. Matteo then did a masterful job of mixing the shows, always ensuring a full, satisfying mix. The Il Divo audiences consistently enjoyed a high-quality show. With such a great engineer as Matteo and a top-notch system as C-12, it doesn't get better than this. Thank you Outline.”
Capital Sound’s general manager Paul Timmins commented, “Having worked with Il Divo for some 12 years we were delighted to hear that Matteo Cifelli would once again be at the helm for FOH duties. Having made the Outline investment in early 2016 we knew that Matteo would request the system for the 2016 tour that would start in May in Europe before crossing the Atlantic to tour there later in the year.”
(Jim Evans)
