Robbie Williams plays through MLA on Lucca finale
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This year Robbie Williams returned to the Bel Paese to light up one of the most historic cities in the Tuscan region. He performed to an audience of over 20,000 people on the Festival’s final evening, closing a season which again brought to the location major names in contemporary rock and pop, including Blur, The Chemical Brothers, Norah Jones, Placebo, KISS, Simply Red and Sigur Ros.
Martin Audio partner, Amandla Productions, has been a reference rental company for the Lucca Summer Festival for many years, and again provided technical management, including a full audio and lighting package.
System engineer, Tommaso Bandecchi, and Amandla CEO, David Lapini, recognised the challenges in meeting the ever-changing requirements of different sound engineers.
For audio they again turned to the “never disappointing” experience of a Martin Audio flagship PA. Bandecchi reports that 28 MLA enclosures were used for the main hangs (14 per side), with 24 MLA Compact for the out-fills (12 per side). Meanwhile, 28 MLX were used for the sub array, 24 WPS for the front-fill and 20 MLA for delays divided into two groups of 10.
The management of the signals in the two main areas was entrusted to Martin Audio’s dedicated Merlin digital matrix processors via AES, as well as remote control via the redundant VU-NET protocol.
“There are many surprising aspects of the MLA system,” Bandecchi observes. “The integration of the system with the WPS allowed control of the entire system via the VU-NET software. This allowed us to obtain great precision and control even using part of the MLA family optimisation system, and to have great flexibility and scalability even in the fills.”
Further, he added, by virtue of the particular amplification and DSP management system, MLA guaranteed great flexibility in obtaining the required frequency response.
In conclusion, Amandla Productions can reflect on an excellent technical outcome—both for the calibration and configuration of the PA system. Robbie Williams' sound engineer and tech team also reported their complete satisfaction with the set-up of the PA, pinpointing the perfect audio and excellent sound distribution across the site.
