Thunder rolls out K1/K2 package for Post Malone
- Details
The second leg of that North American trek picked back up in early February and carried Malone through most of his 22 additional dates before 2020’s global pandemic put live touring on hold in March. However, although much of the material performed on the Runaway Tour was new since Beerbongs & Bentleys, one element that remained constant throughout was the use of an L-Acoustics K1/K2 loudspeaker system supplied and deployed by Detroit-based provider Thunder Audio.
The standard PA configuration for most arenas on the latest tour was comprised of 16 K1 flown over four K2 per side as the main hangs, each backed by 12 KS28 subs flown in cardioid configuration. Adjacent out-fill arrays each consisted of 16 K2, while two additional hangs of 18 Kara enclosures covered the 270° seating areas.
Additional low-frequency energy was generated by a total of 24 more ground-based, cardioid-configured KS28 enclosures, while two stacks of two K2 per side - plus one Kara centred at the very end of the stage thrust - provided distributed front-fill.
Everything was powered by LA12X amplified controllers, with the exception of the 270° hangs and front-fills, which were LA8-driven. All signals on the tour were routed via AVB, using six Milan-certified L-Acoustics P1 processors, with the LA8 being fed an AES signal from the localized P1 processors for a fully digital transport throughout.
Julian Gates served as the systems engineer on the most recent tour leg, and he says that Soundvision’s new Autosolver tools were incredibly helpful: “Autosplay and Autofilter both make my life a lot easier, and they’re now ‘a must’ for every show I do. They’ve reduced the need to set up six different measurement mic positions down to just one or two per array, which gets us to our end result much faster.
“Autoclimate is also wonderful; using it to keep temperature and humidity in check has made a huge difference. These amazing tools that L-Acoustics provides really do help make my work easier, faster, more efficient, and more consistent, and the predictions that we’re able to quickly create come very, very close to what we achieve in the real-world once preliminary tunings have been done.”
Gates also points to the L-Acoustics P1 as being key to the tour’s sonic success. “We had two P1 units at FOH to do all the summing of the console feeds, plus two on stage left and two more on stage right to serve the distribution,” he describes.
FOH engineer Joseph Hellow has worked with Post Malone since Coachella 2018. Both he and monitor engineer Travon Martin manned DiGiCo SD5 consoles; plus, the tour also carried a pair of SD10 desks for opening acts Swae Lee, Tyla Yaweh, and other guests.
“I am completely sold on the rock-solid DiGiCo SD platform,” Hellow says. “Post is much more than just your average artist, and I try to approach each show like it’s a studio recording. With the SD5, Waves plug-ins, and Burl and Symphony I/O using SoundGrid integration, I have the tools to present that kind of depth and detail in a live setting - especially when combined with K1 and K2, which are truly capable of reproducing that.”
(Jim Evans)
