Adamson line array

We ran an article last year about the San Francisco Bay area’s Don Lind, and his company Golden State Sound, when they first purchased their Adamson line array. Recently, Don was the local supplier in Berkeley, CA, for the “Down From The Mountain” tour – the musicians and songs from the film “O Brother Where Art Thou?” I had never gotten the chance to hear Alison Krauss in person before, and when Don told me that her FOH mixer, Bernie Velluti, would be mixing the entire show, I made arrangements to visit them at the Berkeley Community Theatre. I think the first show I ever saw in that hall was as a wide-eyed 20 year old in 1974, with Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt.

Much later in life, I took rigs into the venue several times myself, representing a Bay Area company called Third Ear Sound. Memorable experiences included having an outside promoter force us to put the console in the orchestra pit, which was then lowered down about fifteen feet, until all we could see was the front of the wedges, if we looked straight up.

Luckily, Don and Bernie could set up at the rear of the auditorium. Seat kills were a concern, so they were stuck all the way at the back, under the large balcony. However, BCT is not a super-unfriendly space, acoustically. The Adamsons filled it with very impressive tone, and kept the mix very much out into the audience space, and not interacting with the stage.

Bass mic

Which was a good thing, as all the mics involved were large diaphragm condensers, a mixture of Neumann and Shure. The night I saw was the tour-ending show, and also the only one where, in a wild orgy of permissiveness, the upright bassists plugged into a d.i., in addition to standing near a mic on a short stand. Purist concepts are all well and good, but when they make it hard to hear a great player, at all, a little technology can be excused, in my book. I think probably 99% of the audience did not know that some of the performers wore in-ear monitors. I was surprised to see antennae by the monitor desk, when I first walked in.

The women artists all have fairly traidtional hairstyles, no peroxided punk rock crew cuts at this show! So their in-ears were discreetly hidden away, but certainly helped maintain the harmonies and tunefulness that ran throughout the evening.

Golden State Sound supplied two small MacPherson wedges, that lived by the lead vocal mic center stage. Interestingly, rather than being faced inward, in a traditional configuration, they were turned slightly outwards, away from the mic. The Neumanns had proved to be just too sensitive to the wedges creating what would normally be a desirable hot spot – Don described how painstakingly tour monitor engineer Frank Edmonson worked to get the perfect angle on the wedges.

I watched Bernie adjusting the FOH console while his client Alison Krauss was singing, who has a delicate voice.

Bernie Velluti

I was reminded of a time I worked in that hall with a Third Ear system, for a Buddhist teacher named Thich Nhat Hanh, who speaks literally in a whisper. I had watched one of the guys I worked for intently concentrating and working the EQ, to get intelligibility to the back of the house. It was not an easy job. I’d like to thank Bernie and Don for the pleasure of meeting them, and being able to see a very special show, that I can personally attest did in fact succeed in reaching the last row of seats, without sacrificing warmth or tone. Great job, gentlemen!

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Chris Kathman: Even though Berkeley Community Theatre is not a nightmare space, did you have any concerns when you heard that the tour was using all large-diaphragm mics?

Don Lind: No. After using this speaker system in a wide variety of situations, I didn’t even think about it. As you recall, there was virtually no meter movement on the console. Plenty of gain.

C.K.: Have you ever supplied bluegrass shows before, that used a single mic, and the players did “The Dance,” moving up to the mic for their solos, and then stepping back?

D.L.: No again, other than the portion of Alison’s show (we’ve done a couple) where the band plays around a single mic. I recall thinking how pure (phase I’m certain) that sounded.

C.K.: In the shows you have done with the Adamsons in the past year, do you feel like one of the benefits of line arrays in general is keeping the house mix in the house, and not resonating with the onstage sources?

GSS FOH racks

D.L.: Yeah, the monitor guys love it. The first time with the system I stacked four a side for a outdoor jazz show, at doors I put on a CD at a nice walk-in level, and walked around to backstage. “Oh s##t, the CD stopped!” Of course, it was just where I left it. Amazing.