Working with two stages, the Adele Live 2016 tour production makes unusual and specific demands on its sound production. Unusually for a pop music concert, this calls on Out Board’s TiMax SoundHub-S32 audio showcontrol matrixing, specified by system engineer Ulf Oeckel and purchased by sound provider Black Box Music

The main stage PA comprised main LR, side LR, rear LR, subwoofers and front fill feeds, and four channels of mono front and rear main hangs and front fills for the B Stage.  TiMax doubles up these 12 channels in parallel AES and analogue signal paths to make use of the failsafe auto changeover facility in the system’s amplifiers and Lake processors

At several points during the show, TiMax crossfades the levels on these multiple speaker channels from one set-up to the next, including morphing the delay times on the rear pair of B Stage L-Acoustics K2 hangs from zero delay when Adele is on the B Stage to 80-100ms delay when she moves back to the main end-on stage. Algorithms within TiMax enable this to happen without glitching or zipper noise.

‘There are physical problems to be overcome with trying to fade slowly from one to the other,’ says FOH engineer Dave Bracey. ‘In a large space, you can’t have sound coming from two different sources firing in completely opposite directions. You have to be very careful how you do it so that it doesn’t sound messy to anyone at either end of the coverage area.

‘It’s a good effect; we do it using TiMax, which you can draw time lines into and control the different fade times of all of the speaker stacks, but it can also fade delay times as well, because, of course, the rear hangs on the B Stage are used as delays for the main stage too. When you’re listening to the B Stage the zero time delay is part of the point source system at the B Stage, but when you fade back to the A Stage, you have to introduce delay, so that they line up with the A Stage. TiMax does that job for us. Fading time delay is something that’s not readily available in audio processing, but that’s the wonderful thing that it does.

Loudspeaker set-ups

To deliver the mix – complete with localisation processing – Black Box Music set up an L-Acoustics K2 system. 

‘Designing the system was a challenge because there is a very clean look to the triangular main stage and strict requirements for sight lines and projection, so we had to fly all the K2 very high,’ says system designer and technician Ulf Oeckel, who, like Bracey, has previously worked on tours by Pink and Cher. ‘The K2 was the perfect choice because, despite the sight line requirements, it gives us the projection needed to deliver Adele’s voice to every fan in the audience.’

The production features 150 L-Acoustics K2 loudspeakers. The main stage has LR hangs of ten K2 each, with four K1-SB on top providing low end extension, plus side-hang arrays of an additional 18 K2 per side. To cover the extremities of the 270º arc, additional hangs of 12 K2 per side were used. Eight stacks of three SB28 each are spread in an arc beneath the stage in a cardioid pattern. Oeckel and the team used L-Acoustics SoundVision to create a clever sub arrangement to provide the maximum amount of cancellation onstage. Six white X8 serve as lip fills.

‘Because the proscenium is closed at the back and lit from the inside, we couldn’t place any speakers on the inside of it,’ Oeckel says. ‘So we looked for the smallest speaker with the highest output, which was the X8. It’s the first time it’s been used on a tour and it’s fantastic, a really impressive speaker.’

In the centre of the venue, the B Stage combines an end-on arena set-up with a 360º system to cover the entire audience. This comprises 72 further K2s flown in four hangs of 18. The entire system is powered by L-Acoustics LA8 amplified controllers.

‘Adele starts the show on the B Stage and then walks to the main stage. The system is designed so that there is a seamless fade in the music and vocals between the stages as she traverses,’ says Oeckel. ‘This created some major challenges with the time alignment. For example, while she is on the B Stage the drummer was still going to be on the main stage, but this would have caused issues for audience members hearing the live versus the time-aligned drums. So for those segments he plays in an acoustically isolated room.

‘There were also challenges with automating the delay times. Part of the B Stage system is used for delays. It’s easy enough to add delay when the audio is coming from the main stage for the whole audience in front of it, but it’s more complex when the audio is coming from the B Stage system – the audio trigger is already there but we’re fighting against the time. We’ve hidden any artefacts nicely in some fades and movements to make the transition from stage-to-stage seamless.’

Stage monitor duties are met by the recently launched X15 HiQ. ‘I was very excited to try the new X15 HiQ,’ says monitor engineer, Joe Campbell. ‘I use EQ sparingly, only applying it to individual source inputs and the X15 HiQ translates those sources beautifully, without needing additional filters. They give me an extremely stable polar response across its operating bandwidth, and nice stereo imaging. Even at a distance, the vocals are smooth, not aggressive yet still in your face, with plenty of gain before feedback. The X15 HiQ is a powerful and beautiful sounding wedge.’ 

The X15s impressed Bracey so much that he picked a pair to use as monitors during rehearsals, swapping to a pair of X8s at FOH for the tour.

Despite the challenges of the audio production, the L-Acoustics system has made a significant contribution to the tour’s universally positive reviews. ‘K2 was the perfect choice for this tour as it keeps all the transitions and overlap between the stages as clean as possible,’ Oeckel continues. ‘We are getting excellent results all the way to the very back row. And of course we have had great support from L-Acoustics throughout.’

‘The tour has been fantastic,’ Bracey adds. ‘Adele is singing incredibly, we’ve had great reviews and there have been lots of comments about the sound. It’s one of the best sounding shows I’ve ever mixed, if not the best… what more can I say?’