Because of the punishing live schedule, a key requirement for the band's audio equipment is reliability, as well as needing the guarantee of excellent sound, and XTA equipment is at the heart of the band's live rig.
"I've been all round the world with XTA gear," says the band's front of house engineer Richard McMenamin. "Countless times I have prayed before checking my rack in with the 'gentle' airline baggage handlers, but XTA processors have never let me down. They never fail to power up, they always connect to Audiocore and always talk to my laptop first time."
He continues: "Being the only sound crew travelling with the band, a show day presents a whole range of challenges. Many of these tasks are made a whole lot easier with the use of XTA processors. I'm very happy when I turn up to a venue and see lots of XTA equipment, I know straightaway that my day is going to be relatively painless!
"During the setup I patch my DP226 in line between the stereo outputs of the console and the system crossovers, purely as a system EQ. We play in a lot of different sized venues, so the parametric EQ lets me really get in there to fine tune the system. I simply couldn't achieve the precision I get from the DP226 with just a 2 channel graphic EQ at FOH."
McMenamin is also a big fan of the XTA GQ600, which he specifies on all the band riders. And he's really excited about XTA's brand new 4 series processors.
"XTA have really trumped the DP226 with the introduction of the DP428 and the new 4 Series," he says. "The extra processing power, extra inputs and the new filters will enable me to step my game up another level and deliver an even better sound.
"It's all about the show and, from an engineering point of view, the tools to achieve it are critical. The XTA processors combined with Audiocore software really help me deliver the best sounding show possible. They are the best, period!"
(Chris Henry)
