L-Acoustics was proud to announce that its sound reinforcement systems have been exclusively chosen for this prestigious tour - especially since Phil Collins has not toured in seven years. A wide variety of L-Acoustics products including 112XT, V-Dosc, dV-Dosc, dV-SUB and SB218 enclosures have been specified and the newly-launched 115XT HiQ premieres as the stage monitor of choice.
L-Acoustics' recently-released 3D modelling software - SoundVision - was employed to perform 3D simulations for the majority of stadia and arenas where the tour will play. It proved to be invaluable in optimizing the system coverage on a venue-by-venue basis and being able to precisely predetermine all the installation parameters will provide better results plus save time on tour.
The full L-Acoustics system is comprised of 32 V-Dosc, 24 dV-Dosc, 28 SB218, six dV-SUB, eight 112XT and eight 115XT HiQ - all powered by L-Acoustics LA48a and LA24a amplifiers - and supplied by Swiss V-Dosc Partner, Hyperson. The basic system consists of main L/R V-Dosc arrays with dV-Dosc downfill enclosures (15+3 per side) accompanied by flown SB218 subwoofer arrays (eight per side) with offstage coverage provided by two flown LL/RR arrays of dV-Dosc (9-12 per side).
To make the 112XTs as visually discrete as possible, custom portable shelves were constructed for the stage lip so that the stage remains clean. The 112XT front fill system also provides more flexibility for larger arena installations where the 3+3 dV-Dosc downfills might be required for the offstage dV-Dosc hangs in order to have sufficient vertical coverage. In this case, the 112XT front fill system will have the necessary reserve required to take over without any problem. A final aspect of the front fill system was a central ground-stacked subwoofer array consisting of 3 + 3 dV-SUBS - the goal was to create an overall LCR subwoofer configuration in order to have the necessary time alignment flexibility to have as even low end coverage as possible in venues.
As for the stage monitors, the L-Acoustics 115XT HiQ was chosen to complement the system with two pairs of 115XT HiQs used for two of the three drum kits on stage and a single 115XT HiQ serving as a floor wedge for bass player extraordinaire Leland Sklar. Alain Schneebeli, director of Hyperson and stage monitor engineer for Phil Collins, explained: "The 115XT HiQ is an excellent choice and we are very pleased with its high performance - as a drum monitor it works exceptionally well even without additional subwoofers".
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
