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The Aspect series has just
completed one of its first
major tours - going out on the
road with Britannia Row
Productions for a 27-date
European tour with iconic
sixties band, The
Shadows
Billed
as Together Again for One Last
Time, the tour took in ten
countries, culminating in two
Encore Concerts at the
National Indoor Arena in
Birmingham, UK, where
Britannia Row deployed a total
of 40 Aspect cabinets to
provide the 5000-strong
audience with near 180-degree
coverage. With numerous dates
across Scandinavia, the tour
also included concerts in
Belgium, France, Germany and
the
Netherlands.
A
typical configuration of the
rig, as deployed at
Birmingham, involved a
three-wide, three-high main
hang each side, comprising six
Aspect TA-890H touring
mid/highs and three TA-890L
touring low-frequency
cabinets, all used in
horizontal orientation.
Britannia Row augmented the
main hangs by an additional
two-by-two hang of TA-890H
cabinets each side. A single
TA-890H was used on the front
edge of the stage each side,
as extra fill for the first
few seating rows, while a
ground-stack of three TA-890H
cabinets - with their
waveguides rotated to a
vertical orientation - plus
three TA-890L units, provided
the middle-distance
coverage.
Mike
"Bunny" Warren, mix engineer
for the tour, commented:
"The Aspect system's
performance throughout the
tour was simply superb. The
boxes proved very easy to fly,
and the whole concept worked
very well indeed. In fact,
I've never heard so many
compliments about the sound
quality, from the public and
promoters alike - a
particularly important result,
bearing in mind the critical
nature of the audiences. The
Aspect design is extremely
flexible, and gave us superb
coverage, from small venues
and theatres, up to the
largest auditoria and arenas.
The design's compact size was
also a great benefit, and we
could not have done this
one-truck tour without them.
Overall, I have nothing but
praise for the Aspect, and
this was reflected by comments
from everyone in the
production team."
Roger
Searle, the tour's production
manager, added his comments on
the Aspect design at the end
of the tour:
"Our two prime criteria in
selecting a system for this
tour were sound quality and
truck-packing convenience, and
the Aspect design scored
highly on both counts. From a
practical standpoint, it
worked very well indeed - very
efficient on truck packing,
with no wasted space. By using
Aspect, we managed to fit an
entire arena system, with
lights, backline and
everything, into just one
truck! As Aspect is not a
line-array design, you can
pick and choose exactly the
number and type of cabinets
required for each venue, and
leave the rest in the truck.
This ability to use just parts
of the system according to the
venue makes for very efficient
set-up, obviously saves time,
and provides great flexibility
- we were handling 5000-seat
arenas one night, and
1000-seat proscenium theatres
the next. We had good
reactions to the sound quality
throughout the tour, including
one visitor to the NIA in
Birmingham who told us 'it was
like having The Shadows in
your front room!' Ultimately,
it's the audience's perception
that counts, and if we can
achieve that kind of result in
a notoriously difficult venue,
then job done. I have
experienced many different
systems over many years, but
this one worked very well
indeed, and I'd be happy to
take it out again
anytime."
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