Martin MLA reinforces San Siro special
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More than 20,000 people attended his concert, exactly the goal that the artist (real name Davide Bernasconi) had been hoping for - and hugely impressive considering he was using a language very difficult to understand for anyone not from that area of Northern Italy.
The sound reinforcement was provided by Martin Audio partners, All Access, and they fielded their premium and award-winning MLA PA. The hangs comprised no fewer than 22 MLA and an MLD Downfill on each side of the stage, underpinned by 36 MLX subs. For side-fills they added a further 11 MLA on each flank, while front-fills were made up of four further MLD Downfills and eight Martin Audio W8LM Mini Line Array.
For the musicians, 12 Martin Audio LE2100 and six LE1200 floor monitors were provided for reference sound, and stage-fills comprised eight Martin Audio W8LM and four WS218X subs.
Sound engineer Paolo ‘Red’ Talami, All Access PA manager, explained the choice of system configuration. "The attendance was estimated between 20,000 and 25,000 people and it was not decided until the last moment whether to open the second ring of the stadium," he explained.
"For this reason I developed three different projections in [Martin Audio’s proprietary] Display 2.2; one was covering only the first ring, the second was a partial ring cover and finally a full coverage of the second ring. When the decision to open the second ring was taken on show day I opted for a partial cover.”
The three profiles had been realised with the same type of rigging and degree of array incline, so that any projection could be implemented as easily as possible.
“With a stage height of 1.90m, we centrally located the four Martin Audio MLD front-fills on the MLX line source, along with a configuration of 3 + 3 Martin Audio W8LM as out-fill and two separate Martin Audio W8LM,” he continued.
The subs were arranged in 12 stacks of three Martin Audio MLX in ‘line source’ configuration - spaced from 0.7m and with incremental delays for a 170° dispersion. This resulted in uniform sound coverage, delivering the same image to all 20,000 fans.
Davide Van De Sfroos’ mission was fully accomplished, and his appearance on the San Siro stage represented the crowning glory of a 20-year career.
(Jim Evans)
