Manilow had 25 consecutive Top 40 hits between 1975 and 1983 and worldwide sales of over 80m albums over his four-decade career. Last year's My Dream Duets debuted at No. 4, making it his 15th Top 10 album. Meanwhile, Ken Newman has worked with everyone from Shirley MacLaine, Liza Minnelli, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Paul Anka, and One Last Tour represents a unique combination of best practices he's built for Barry Manilow over the last 23 years.
In 1991 when Newman was between mixing gigs, A-1 Audio sent him out as system tech for several of Manilow's Showstoppers shows, with Paul Dalen mixing. When his Greatest Hits tour was organised the following year and Dalen declined, he suggested they have Newman mix, and the rest, as they say, is history.
For Manilow's 2015 final arena outing, Newman decided to make the change to Martin Audio's MLA system. Delicate Productions provided the system, which consisted of 11 MLA per side with one MLD down-fill cabinet. Side-hangs were a dozen MLA Compact per side. Three MLX dual 18-inch subwoofers per side were used in a cardioid configuration. Front-fills were W8LM Mini line array enclosures. The switch to MLA, however, was not taken lightly.
Newman picks up the story, "I first heard about Martin Audio's MLA from my friend Harold Blumberg, who had used it on a number of corporate events. Then I heard from various other industry heavyweights that I should check it out, so I attended a seminar at last fall's AES Convention in Los Angeles called Not Your Father's Line Array focusing on the new digitally-steerable line arrays, and learned about the virtues of Martin Audio's MLA, which sounded like just the thing for Barry Manilow's show. I told Barry about these cool, new speakers and he said, 'I trust you!'"
According to Newman, "The biggest challenge on the Manilow show has always been gain-before-feedback on Barry's vocal mic, because he's not comfortable putting the mic close to his mouth, and he's not the loudest singer I've ever worked with. Those factors, combined with his desire for every aspect of his dense arrangements to be heard by his audience while keeping his vocal well on top of the mix, combine to make gain on his vocal mic a constant challenge.
"Barry also frequently talks about how the entire audience should hear everything, with no one being offended by the show being overly loud, but at the same time by the show being loud enough to be exciting and moving. So I guess you'd call that the challenge of even coverage."
MLA is a powerful marriage of loudspeakers and software, where transducers are individually driven and optimised to deliver the summation of crystal clear sound at the audience's ears, ensuring even and smooth coverage across the entire audience.
"The MLA system allows me to spend less time walking the room because I have confidence that coverage is uniform throughout," continues Newman. "That allows me to concentrate on my main job, which is mixing the show and making sure the mix is everything Barry wants it to be.
A final show is scheduled for 17 June - on his 72nd birthday - at the Barclays Centre in Brooklyn, where Manilow grew up; so that should be quite the event and Newman is excited, "I look forward to MLA doing its thing and bringing the happiness of Barry Manilow to all the audience members equally.!"
Delicate Productions president Jason Alt adds, "It's a real privilege to be a part of Barry Manilow's One Last Tour. I worked as a system tech with Ken on Manilow at A-1 Audio, and I know MLA gives him exactly what he has always wanted out of a system: great sound, accura
