COLUMBUS, OH – This year, the first where there are dual Women of Faith tours bringing musical performances to 29 U.S. cities on weekends from April through November, CTS Audio is providing support in the form of a Yamaha EtherSound Solution.
About 14,000 women typically attend the two-day weekend events, which focus on inspirational stories along with musical performances. The two-part tour, includes "Over the Top" (Eastern U.S.) with musical performances by Sandi Patty, Mandisa, Mary Beth and Steven Curtis Chapmanm and "Imagine" (Western U.S.) with Mary Mary and Natalie Grant.
CTS Audio, Franklin, Tenn., has provided audio support for 10 years, and returns again this year. Mike Taylor, director of performance audio, was tasked with putting together two separate EtherSound rigs that will move from venue to venue across the U.S.
The system includes dual Yamaha DM2000v2 digital consoles, two Yamaha SB168-ES Stage Boxes and Yamaha AD8HR mic pres. CTS will staff both tours.
The "Over the Top" crew include Ed Crippen, front of house engineer; Tim Olson, monitor engineer; and Peter Streiff, system tech. "Imagine" crew support is provided by front of house engineer Jon Schwarz, monitor engineer Weston Smith, and system tech Dave McMullin.
"Back in 2001, we decided to go all-digital as a company," said Taylor. "Our crew became very familiar with the Yamaha DM2000 since it was one of the first consoles that could provide the functionality we needed at its size for the first Women of Faith tour. We have come to rely on its flexibility through the years, and our ability to get around on the console quickly is very important in a live show.
"Its reliability is unmatched in the market," Taylor added. "By the time we started our second Women of Faith tour, we already owned quite a few DM2000s, so it made sense to replicate the existing system – in case artists flipped to other cities, we would have consistency for them and the engineers."
Taylor said that the production package for the Women of Faith tours make the Yamaha consoles very favorable in terms of how CTS packs the truck. "We are able to get an arena in the round packed into 40 feet of truck space. Nobody else is doing that. Our crew is able to load in the complete set up in eight hours."
CTS chose the Yamaha Stage Boxes for their ability to get 16 inputs and 8 outputs per stage box.
"Since our system is in the round, and unlike most touring systems, our front of house and monitor mixing consoles are in one location," Taylor said. "We are able to put our SB-168ES at the stage and run one Cat5 cable to front of house as our snake. We then utilize Yamaha MY16-ES64 and MY1EX-CA cards to split the signal to the two consoles. The stage boxes interface with the DM2000 consoles so easily and make a digital snaking system a cost-effective solution."
Both tours are using Shure wireless microphones and Sennheiser wireless for PMs. Crown amps and JBL line arrays are also part of both rigs.
For more information, please visit www.ctsaudio.com and www.yamahaca.com .
