Both tours, which involved sell out dates across the country in front of thousands, allowed SSE engineers to work with the company's recent purchases of the new LM 44, integrating the units into their existing inventories.
Simon Gladstone, technical manager at SSE, said: "We used both the LM 26s and the LM 44s on The Arctic Monkeys tour. In the past, we would normally have used our old Dolby DLPs for such big gigs, but having the LM 44 allowed us to leave these out, which is testament to the capabilities of the new units."
SSE's engineer on the Arctic Monkeys tour, Mark Pantlin, had an LM 44 out front taking AES from an Avid Venue Profile digital console, and clocking externally from an Antelope Isochrone OCX. The audio was then transmitted via Dante to two LM 26s either side of the stage, over SSE's bespoke Cisco/Neutrik fibre optic digital returns system, with an analogue backup in place. This set-up was used to drive an L'Acoustics K1 system.
"One challenge we did have was when the Profile was removed and an analogue playback was used, the Dante master would change," said Gladstone. "This was a bit of a worry for us, but the crossover happened seamlessly, with no break in the audio. That's thanks to the technology that is packed into Lake's LM Series."
After such success on the Artic Monkeys tour, SSE sent the same system out on tour with number one artist Example, on that occasion in conjunction with L'Acoustics V-DOSC.
(Jim Evans)
