Ministry of Sound celebrates with Martin MLA
- Details
Ministry of Sound Classical presents Three Decades of Dance took clubbers on a journey through the dance anthems of yesteryear. Martin Audio’s signature sound, as featured in Ministry of Sound clubs worldwide, was provided by RG Jones and mixed by Phil Wright - a devotee of Martin Audio’s flagship MLA.
Working for promoters Coalition Presents, who produced the event with Raymond Gubbay, RG Jones - who already had a relationship with MoS, having provided equipment for some of their events - fielded 18 MLA a side. This was a similar configuration to that fielded for War of the Worlds at the same venue. Hangs of 12 MLA Compact provided out-fills on each side, and 16 MLX subwoofers were set in a broadside cardioid array with a two-metre central gap for a stage thrust, surrounded by a circular screen, on which the DJs performed. Eight DD12s were deployed as front fills along with some MLA Mini enclosures.
The components were chosen by RG Jones’ Jack Bowcher and his colleague Sam Millen handled the prep, assembled the racks, built the network (on a Dante and AES backbone) and was onsite technician alongside Doug Hunt.
Millen stated, “We worked together to achieve a great sounding PA, using the Merlins [Martin Audio’s digital loudspeaker management system] to provide more outputs in order to have greater control of the system. I then time-aligned the PA and then Doug and I tuned the system together.” Hard Avoid was used to avoid slapback from the back of the arena.
This provided the environment for Phil Wright to mix the sound on a 96-channel DiGiCo SD12. “And we used every channel,” he reports.
It was the sound engineer’s first time working at the O2, in front of 18,000 people. Of the challenges he said, “Although it was a loud show, with four DJs, we had to ensure the orchestra was the headliner. Local promoters feared we may had peaked too early, as Paul Oakenfold was on relatively early. But the production went up a level when the orchestra came on.”
Also represented were Martin Audio’s parent company Focusrite, with their RedNet Audio-over-IP solution, an A6R MkII analogue interface for Dante feeding the Shure PSM1000 in-ears.
Other RG personnel on duty included Rosie Tarrant (on stage and RF tech), Leigh Davis (on stage and personal monitors) while Nathan Kennedy was PA tech.
