Lostprophets and their front-of-house engineer Alan 'Doof' McCann specified an Alpha system worldwide for two tours in 2006. Following the success of last autumn's theatre tour, the band is back to play their first arena headlining shows. For these dates, SSE Audio Group has upgraded them to a Nexo Geo T Series system plus Nexo NX242 second-generation digital controller, fitted with NXtension (expander) memory cards, and carrying the NXstream software operating system.
"It's the best I've ever heard it sound," says Jason 'Baboon' Hattams, SSE's senior systems tech. "The system has so much more information on the top end, all the way to 16KHz. When I first heard it, I thought, 'I'd mix on that without any EQ."
His words are echoed by Doof, FOH engineer for Lostprophets for the last six years: "With the new operating system NXstream, I found Geo T a lot tighter, easier to control, and more responsive. I try to layer my mixes as much as I can, and get a lot of detail down."
Doof continues, "Once we start, I never look up as I'm constantly changing things and adjusting to the way the band is playing on the night. The new Geo T gives me all the detail I need; I used to mix through headphones, but on this tour, I don't need to bother.
"The all-digital system goes from Vi6 console via TC Electronic converters, into NetCira. With the Heritage console out front, the difference was amazing; the system sounded like it had been coloured, and there was a huge presence boost in the low end," explained Hattams. "Using EtherSound also gave us a quite audible difference, you could hear the headroom change. There is a tremendous improvement in the coherence of the system. All the NX242s sound the same, which means everything sounds linear."
(Jim Evans)
