Mixing Manilow Through MLA On Farewell Tour posted: 08/07/2016
Sound engineer Ken Newman switches to Martin Audio's premier system
Veteran American sound engineer Ken Newman carried on where he left off in the States when Barry Manilow's One Last Time tour arrived in the UK on its trip around the globe - with Martin Audio's premier MLA providing the arena sound.
Making his MLA debut with Delicate Productions' system on the North American leg, the sound engineer was adamant that he wanted the same production rider in the UK - and his first port of call was Martin Audio rental partner, Capital Sound.
Capital supplied the rig, but unlike the previous dates, the ten UK shows had the advantage of being run digitally. With MLA tech Russ Cunningham and PA/stage tech Nick Cook in support, the main PA comprised 11 x MLA and an MLD Downfill each side, while the sidefill component started with hangs of 12 x MLA Compact per side but increased to 16 for the larger 20,000-capacity O2 Arena in London.
Flown in the rig, between the main and side PA, were three MLX subs - mostly set at 45 to the main rig - while a further 14 W8LM Mini Line Arrays acted as frontfills/outfills with four further MLX on the ground. This was pretty much an identical rig to the system Delicate had put out.
After eulogizing the system performance in the States Ken Newman was equally elated with the slightly supercharged production tools made available to him in the UK, including an uprated DiGiCo console which brought the best out of MLA.
Speaking of his adoption of MLA, he said, I didnt hesitate to use a new speaker system, even though it's the end of an era for Barry Manilow. Although Barry did his first final tour' in 2004, and subsequently landed in Las Vegas where he stayed until 2011, it sounds like its for real this time.
The sound engineer had first been introduced to MLA by colleagues, Mark Frink and Harold Blumberg. They had been telling me about this amazing new speaker system for a while, he said. I attended a seminar on Multicellular Loudspeakers at the 2014 AES Convention and pursued the idea of using MLA for Barry Manilows shows without even hearing the system.
He heard it for the first time when Delicate was setting up a show at the LA Forum, I was able to experience the system using recorded music and it was better than I had expected, in terms of evenness of coverage. It brings every detail of the performance to every seat in the house, without making it uncomfortably loud for anyone.
Which was crucial, as the importance of everyone in the venue hearing every single syllable that Barry says or sings had been stressed from the get go. That being the premise, the MLA system sounded like a must have item!
Once the North American tour wrapped in Denver, Ken Newman quickly got to work on sourcing the same rider across the Atlantic. It was vital that we continued with the exact same setup as it had been very successful, both in terms of what the audience experienced and the fact that Barry had become very comfortable singing through it.
Whenever he is supporting a tour in the US that goes to the UK, Jason Alt of Delicate Productions turns to Capital Sound. It was therefore a huge relief when we learnt that we could use Capital's MLA with the upgraded production, states Newman.
Barry Manilow himself was equally relieved, as the engineer explained. He always trusts my decisions - but when he was told that we might have to go with a different speaker system because of logistical reasons, he made it very clear that he wanted to stay with MLA because he had heard such great comments about how well it covered all the seats in a venue, even those very far from the stage.
It was surprising to me that he had heard any comments from audience members and showed he is even more in-tune with his audience than I had previously thought!
A generic optimization had been evolved with system tech Phil Reynolds on the North American leg - settings which worked both for audience coverage, maximum gain before feedback and Barry's comfort level on stage . With Cap's ace system tech Toby Donovan only available for the first show Russ Cunningham headed over from the States to run the entire tour. Russ not only checked with our US MLA tech, Nate Lettus, but was extremely accommodating in terms of system design and implementation, and offered new optimization curves based on what he saw me doing each day on the Lake processors. We implemented those curves and the system sounded even better than it had in the US.
Another beneficial production tweak' was the decision to fly the subs, which was instigated by Ken himself. For the 2015 part of the US tour, we had only ground subs, three per side in cardioid mode. I commented to Phil Reynolds that it would be nice if there were more subwoofer energy up in the side seats, so he suggested that the next time we went out, we should fly a few subs between the MLA and the MLA Compact clusters. So in 2016 the flown subs were added, and they greatly improved the coverage of sub-100Hz energy.
Summing up, the sound engineer said, Being able to run the system digitally was advantageous in terms of overall sound quality while the noise floor was simply non-existent. I feel Capital really spoiled me.
Looking ahead, Ken Newman believes that while this may mark the end of Barry Manilow's touring schedule one-off shows are a likelihood. Of course Ill always prefer MLA systems for those shows - and if I'm fortunate enough to work with other artists, Ill certainly opt for MLA again, because I think its virtues are appropriate for all shows.
About Martin Audio
Founded by audio engineer David Martin in 1971, Martin Audio pioneered the use of all-horn-loaded bass designs in world-class touring loudspeaker systems for
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Mixing Manilow Through MLA On Farewell Tour posted: 08/07/2016 
