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Live Sound

Maroon 5, Sound Image On The Move

When Adam Levine isn’t on TV as a coach on The Voice, it seems he’s always on the road as lead singer of Maroon 5. The group’s on-going tour has been circling the world for the last two years with an audio crew from Sound Image and a sizable L-Acoustics K1/K2 line array system in tow.

Los Angeles, CA (October 19, 2016)—When Adam Levine isn’t on TV as a coach on The Voice, it seems he’s always on the road as lead singer of Maroon 5. The group’s on-going tour has been circling the world for the last two years with an audio crew from Sound Image and a sizable L-Acoustics K1/K2 line array system in tow.

The audio team includes FOH engineer Jim Ebdon; Jim Miller, L-Acoustics system tech; Dan Bower and Matt McQuaid, PA techs; Marcus Douglas, monitor tech and crew chief; and Bill Chrysler, monitor engineer.

Throughout the run, Ebdon and a series of system technicians have been trying out various K1/K2 configurations that have changed over time. The system started with two hangs of 10 K1 per side with four to six K2 boxes slung underneath, depending on the size of the venue, but most recently, the main arrays consist of 14 K1s per side with two K2s underneath, always powered and processed with LA8-equipped LA-RAKs. In addition, there are 12 K2s per side used as side fills, 10 Kara boxes flown as rear fills for arenas and stadiums, and six Kiva speakers per side for front fills.

The low end has usually been handled using 10 SB28 subs ground stacked; however, Ebdon has recently taken to hanging additional K1-SB subs alongside the K1 hangs. “I used to think that would create too much bass in the roof when we put them on the top of the arrays,” he explains. “But, on the sides, they really seemed to add a dimension. We started trying that on the South American leg of the tour. After we’d done a few shows like that, we left them off for a show and that’s when we realized that we really missed them. So now they’re part of the design.”

The K2s in particular have impressed their users on the tour. For instance, lead vocalist (and The Voice star) Adam Levine spends much of the show traversing a 130-foot-long stage thrust into the audience. Ebdon says the K2s are what he’s listening to from an FOH position that’s just 95 feet from the stage.

“There’s been no feedback at all,” he marvels, “even though we have so much audience cheering and singing along getting into his microphone.” (It can be a challenging location, Ebdon acknowledges, but better than the alternative that could put him virtually in a venue exit ramp. “I have to be careful,” he says with mock caution. “If I stand up, they might sell my seat!”)

L-Acoustics
www.l-acoustics.com

Sound Image
www.sound-image.com

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