USA - Dave Matthews Band (DMB) brings its fusion of rock, jazz, and folk to sheds and festivals across the US this summer, carrying a Meyer Sound Panther system provided by UltraSound, LLC. The 32-date tour marks nearly three decades of collaboration between DMB, Meyer Sound, and UltraSound, a relationship that began with the band’s first headline tour in 1995.
DMB is out with a Panther system for the third time; the current configuration is anchored by 16 Panther large-format linear array loudspeakers per side, supported by 14 Lyon out-fills per side, eight Leopard front-fills on the downstage edge, and CQ-1 and JM1-P loudspeaker-fills as needed, with 10 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements per side hung behind mains in a gradient array.
Panther offers numerous advantages, says UltraSound senior systems engineer Tom Lyon, who has been working with DMB since 2000 and has been mixing the band since 2018. “Number one, it’s very lightweight, so I can hang more of it in some of these very weight-conscious venues that have a weight limit. And the design of the horn is very consistent over its coverage pattern, and the edges of the pattern sound really good.”
UltraSound systems engineer Paul ‘Pablo’ White adds that working with a self-powered system streamlines deployment. “I like having the amplifier in the speaker; I think it gives Meyer Sound more control over its product,” he explains. “You’ve removed the variable of a different amplifier vendor and tuning, which takes a factor out of deployment. And with Panther, the amp is so light, and the box is so light, it’s competitive with boxes that aren’t self-powered.”
Lyon says Panther makes mixing easier - “It takes a lot less work to get to the curve that I like to have. Compared to previous systems, you don’t have to EQ everything to get it to what you want it to sound like. I just can get to that end point a lot faster and a lot more consistently, from show to show. It’s also consistent from front to back too. It’s just a step forward in engineering design.”
