Steely Dan has a reputation among audiophiles and throughout Pro Audio for their fastidious attention to sound production, so much so that many FOH engineers and system techs use a Steely Dan track to tune a system. When it comes to live sound, their expectations for the PA are no less demanding.
Returning to mix Steely Dan is Mark Dowdle, whose extensive credits include Elton John, Gloria Estefan, Fleetwood Mac, Tina Turner and Jackson Browne, to name just a few. Last year's tour included a stop at Ravinia Festival in Chicago, where Dowdle mixed on two seven-box MLA arrays, the first year of a new OSA installation and the first new PA in a decade at North America's oldest music festival.
Late last year, Steely Dan's road manager, tour sound icon Robert 'Nitebob' Czaykowski, introduced Walter Becker to MLA at a demonstration at New York's Manhattan Centre, where they were able to walk around and hear the evenness of its response and coverage. Steely Dan often plays theatres, where the mix position is usually at the back, beneath a balcony. "I go out there every day and listen to it; that's part of my gig," Czaykowski said. "What really knocks me out about MLA is that you can really control it so it's not splattering off a back wall or cluttering up in the lower balcony."
Present also at the NYC demo was Jim Risgin, Vice President for OSA - owners of the largest inventory of MLA in North America. With offices in Chicago, Las Vegas and now also Nashville, OSA have built an impressive reputation and client list providing complete technical services to some of the largest corporate, sporting events and concert tours in the U.S. The NYC demo was followed by extensive research from Mark Dowdle to confirm that the system would deliver the desired performance, and as a result Steely Dan added MLA to their tour.
Across the demanding 56-stop tour, MLA showed its versatility, control and overall sound performance credentials. Dowdle points out that the MLA provides extremely even front-to-back SPL as well as evenness of frequency response throughout the listening area. "The coverage is very smooth, especially its shading," he said. "You can walk up on the PA in the front and it sounds just like it does in the back of the room."
The tour played Oklahoma City's Chesapeake Energy Arena and New Orleans' UNO Lakefront Arena using the 14-box MLA main arrays and 9-box MLA Compact side arrays that they carry. "The LA Forum was the only venue on our 56-show itinerary where we had to add PA," said Mitchell Keller, Steely Dan's production manager for the fourth year running. "It's quite impressive that on a two truck tour we can carry enough PA to do arenas."
(Jim Evans)
