"I couldn't wait to get my hands on the new system," says Simon Honywill, who took the opportunity to mix Chris Rea's sound through the MLA Compact on the closing dates of the recent European and UK tour.
Honywill, who had largely been responsible for driving RG Jones' investment in the MLA platform, instigated a seamless PA switch, ably assisted by system engineer Mark Edwards in time for the last two tour dates - at the Pavilions in his home town of Plymouth, and HMV Apollo Hammersmith, where the system had been formally launched last month.
Whilst the system performed admirably in Plymouth, Honywill and Edwards, along with Martin Audio R&D Director, Jason Baird, repurposed the system for the larger Hammersmith show where the impact was described by Simon Honywill as "unbelievable".
While the optimisation at Hammersmith was nothing unusual, with the balcony being notched out in the software to remove unwanted reflections, Simon Honywill explained, "Mark and Jason worked on the EQ curve and played with the sub alignment so that the system was everything I had hoped it would be.
"In Plymouth we used a broadside array of 12 DSX subs in four cardioid cells under the stage apron, but this isn't possible in Hammersmith so we went for a left/right cardioid stack of six subs a side and tweaked the crossover between the subs and the MLA Compact to get a really rich, smooth low end with real punch."
Deploying a ground stack of four Martin Audio W8LM Mini Arrays under the two main PA hangs of 12 MLA Compact elements they were able to draw down the image at the front while substantially decreasing the physical profile of the stacked system.
Meanwhile, RG Jones' full-sized, and multiple award-winning MLA will make its debut on the Sainsbury's UK 2012 School Games Closing Ceremony at London Olympic Park's Basketball Arena on 9 May.
(Jim Evans)
