With dance classics reimagined by the 50-piece London Concert Orchestra with Paul Oakenfold and other guest DJs, Ministry of Sound Classical presents Three Decades of Dance took clubbers on a journey through the dance anthems of yesteryear at the O2 Arena recently. Used in MoS clubs worldwide, Martin Audio sound was a familiar inclusion, provided on this occasion by RG Jones and mixed by Phil Wright.
Working for promoters Coalition Presents – who produced the event with Raymond Gubbay – RG Jones already had a relationship with MoS, having provided equipment for some of their events. Gor the London spectacular, the company fielded 18 MLA per side in a similar configuration to that used for War of the Worlds at the same venue. Hangs of 12 MLA Compact provided out fill on each side, and 16 MLX subwoofers were set in a broadside cardioid array with a 2m central gap for a stage thrust, surrounded by a circular screen, on which the DJs performed. Eight DD12s provided front fill, along with some MLA Mini enclosures.
The components were chosen by RG Jones’ Jack Bowcher, while Sam Millen handled the prep, assembled the racks, built the network (Dante/AES) and was onsite technician alongside Doug Hunt.
‘We worked together to achieve a great-sounding PA, using the Merlins [Martin Audio’s digital loudspeaker management system] to provide more outputs in order to have greater control,’ Millen says. ‘I then time-aligned the PA and then Doug and I tuned the system together.’ Hard Avoid was used to avoid slapback from the back of the arena.
At FOH, Phil Wright mix the sound on a 96-channel DiGiCo SD12 – ‘and we used every channel’.
It was the sound engineer’s first time working at the O2, in front of 18,000 people. ‘Although it was a loud show with four DJs, we ensured the orchestra was the headliner,’ he says. ‘Local promoters feared we may had peaked too soon, as Paul Oakenfold was on relatively early but the production went up a level when the orchestra came on.
‘We managed to avoid a lot of slapback [using the Hard Avoid feature in the Display software] and the direct-to-reverberation ratio was mind boggling.’
The entire orchestra were on in-ear monitors, and most of the instruments were miked using DPA Core 4099s – ‘the combination between this and the PA was fantastic’.
‘Despite the proximity to the PA we achieved a super amount of rejection at the back of MLA which meant I could mix it at 105dB comfortably without feedback. The crowd were screaming at 102dB and so I had to put the show on top of that.’
The power offered by the MLA/MLX combo meant he had another 15dB if needed – ‘it’s bonkers how loud it would go. By putting in a really big system and merely tickling it, the impulse response was utterly visceral and really grabbed you in the chest’.
Also represented was Martin Audio parent company Focusrite, with a RedNet Audio-over-IP solution, an A6R MkII analogue interface for Dante feeding the Shure PSM1000 in-ear monitors.
See also:
Ministry of Sound Classical adopts Klang IEM
