Having been shaping the sound of Italian hip-hop, rock and rap artist Caparezza for the past 13 years, sound engineer Antonio Porcelli believes he has a winning bass combination in Powersoft’s M-Force subwoofer driver and the M-Sub enclosure developed by Audio Labs System’s Mario Di Cola.
‘A single MForce was enough to make the combined effort of the other subs look ridiculous,’ he says, recalling a demo he attended while mixing Caparezza’s album Museica in California.
‘On a day off, we visited the Namm show where I met Mario. He invited me to a demo at a Hollywood club the following day. That was the first time I heard MForce – inside Mario’s M-Sub – and I was able to compare it against a number of subs of another brand.‘The sound of the MForce was faster and deeper, and the surprising thing was that there was no distortion – unlike the traditional systems with which it was compared. I was incredulous! It was perfect for the sound I was looking for and I immediately knew I wanted this for Caparezza’s next tour.’
Porcelli has been using Di Cola’s loudspeaker systems for 11 years, following an MTV Day in Bologna, when he was there with LiSA – ‘a PA that I continue to use today in the most important Caparezza shows’. At that time, Porcelli already owned three Powersoft K3 DSP, running Armonía software, using them with his Proel Edge and Nexo PS15. On tour he was also using Powersoft K10s for the array and two Powersoft K20 to run the 16 subs.
‘I have always loved the sound of Powersoft amplifiers,’ he says. ‘They are very fast and never fail in terms of the dynamics. The transient response is fantastic and is perfect for the aggressive hip hop/rock sound of Caparezza.’
Confronted with M-Force, it was clear to Di Cola that it was a radical new approach to transducer technology away from the established cone-and-coil paradigm: ‘I realised that I was immersed in the future, and face-to-face with what I considered a turning point in the sound system development, comparable to that of the line array,’ he says.
As a result, he specified four for use on Caparezza current tour, tasking Di Cola with building four bespoke M-Subs. ‘Powersoft’s Claudio Lastrucci supported my request by providing the M-Force transducers and the M-Drive amplifier modules at short notice. I am very grateful to him and Mario, because they made the whole thing possible.’
When the subs arrived, Di Cola’s PA tech, Danilo Stramaglia, designed them into an array across the front of the stage, alternating traditional subs and M-Subs. ‘We used two delay lines for traditional subs and two for the M-Subs to create an electronic arc. Now that I have used them on tour I can’t see me going back to anything else.’
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