LISBON, Portugal – Gabisom Audio Equipment from Brazil deployed Martin Audio’s premier MLA rig on the World Stage for the first time at the recent five-day Rock in Rio Festival in Bela Park, Lisbon. With 112 MLA, eight MLD, 60 MLX subs and 24 MLA Compact, this became the largest deployment of MLA systems on a single stage, eclipsing both Glastonbury and Hyde Park main stages.
More details from Martin Audio (www.martin-audio.com):
Unusual for MLA—but a trademark sound and visual design of Rock in Rio—is the doubling of hangs on either side of the stage with both flanking an array of subs. Typically the design calls for one array dedicated to vocals and the other instrumentation from the band. Coincidentally, and great for those who love their audio history, a similar idea was first espoused by company founder Dave Martin in the ’70s. What the design did deliver for the festival was a muscular sound but one that had absolute clarity for the daily crowds in excess of 70,000.
Adding his experience was Martin Audio Product Support Engineer, Chris Pyne, who had also been part of the original crew of Rock in Rio in Las Vegas. “Geographically, this was a complicated place, as the contouring of the terrain was very different from left to right, climbing steeply on one side of the stage and running flat on the other,” he said. “The challenge was to get even coverage and to compensate for this unusual geography, every single array required a different optimization. Fortunately, with MLA and Display 2 software this was a very easy problem to solve.”
The main World Stage was a who’s who of rock and pop artists featuring Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Stereophonics, Queen with Adam Lambert, Mika, Fergie, Hollywood Vampires, Maroon 5, Avicii, and Charlie Puth.
Chris Pyne reported that all sound engineer comments had been directed at the efficiency of MLA’s mids and highs. “Queen’s technical team, in particular, noted how impressive the rear rejection was on stage, and Gabisom’s monitor tech Thiago Borges remarked on the purity of sound.”
Finally, it was not only MLA that rocked the stage, but also many acts used a full set of Martin Audio LE1500 and LE2100 monitors fed by the company’s own MA5.2KDSP amplifiers.
Said Dom Harter, managing director of Martin Audio, “This is a historic victory for MLA and Martin Audio and is representative of the system’s growing dominance in the festival circuit. We are delighted that Gabisom has started a new division in the company and look forward to many more prestigious tours with this world famous rental company.”
