Dave AcariJay-Z’s six-date tour around some of the UK’s biggest concert venues provedthe ultimate road test for the country’sfirst Adamson arena system. WithLondon’s Wireless Festival, Cardiff,Bournemouth and Manchester allunder their belt, PSNE caught up withthe sound crew at Glasgow’s SECC forthe penultimate show of the tour.

Adamson was specced by tour production manger and Jay-Z’s front of house engineer Bryon ‘Hotdog’ Tate, who had been impressed with thespeakers’ performance in the UnitedStates where he’s used them on a number of hip-hop shows in the pastcouple of years.

“The Adamson system is loud,”explained Tate. “It only takes a littlework to get a really smooth and punchysound that’s ideal for hip-hop. I wasreally keen to work with it on Jay-Z’sUK dates.”

Tate has a long-standing workingrelationship with Canegreen and, bycoincidence, when he was speccingthe system with the company,Canegreen’s Yan Stile had literally just been taking to pro-audio hirecompany SSE about its brand newAdamson arena system.

“We’d just taken delivery of the system and the sub-hire with Yan atCanegreen as its first project,” said

SSE’s John Penn. “Of course, it wouldhave been nice to have it out on oneof our own jobs, but this has workedout really well.

“There’s a lot of pressure involvedin putting together a new system forthe first time, but this has been madeeasier as Hotdog was able to get theAdamson system he asked for – andthe production team was able to workwith Canegreen with whom they arevery familiar.”

The Adamson system for the tourconsisted of 24 Y18 and 12 Y10 linearray speakers with 12 T21 subwoofersset up and installed using SSE’s Pro Sight inclinometer. It was all powered by Adamson-speccedLab.gruppen amps and driven by XTADP226 digital controllers.

Both Tate and Adamson’s JochenSommer highlighted the unique useof Kevlar cones in the Adamsonspeakers, particularly in the T21 subs.

“The T21 subs are amazing – theyare flat out the best I’ve heard. We’reusing 12 when we’d need 24 of anything else. And if they can handlea Jay-Z show they can handle anything!” said Tate.

Sommer added: “With the T21,Adamson has breathed new life into the 21” market which was almostdead – the reality was that traditional21” speakers were slow and lacked

APPOINTMENTSf FBT Elettronica hasannounced the appointment ofLuigi Paoloni as export managerfor Central-South America, Africa(except north), East Europe extraEEC countries. Paoloni spent 17years at Proel as part of theinternational sales departmentmanagement team. He joinsforces with FBT’s exportmanagers Roberto Mataloni andMauro Zazzini. The three are incharge of the company’s exportsales for the entire portfolio. www.fbt.it

f Fleetwood Mobiles hasappointed Lise Regan as salesand marketing manager. Shecomes directly from managingLivingston Studios where she hadoverall responsibility for facilities.In a further move, Fleetwood hasannounced that Mike Silverstonhas taken on the role of generalmanager of Fleetwood’s facilities,with overall responsibility fortechnical and logistical aspects ofthe operation. Silverston hasbeen Fleetwood’s technicalmanager since January 2000.www.fleetwoodmobiles.com

UNITED KINGDOM

Adamson provides Blueprint for Jay-Z tour

www.prosoundnewseurope.com � September 2008live50

From left: Pete Hughes (Canegreen stage manager), Jochen Sommer (Adamson tech),

Bob Lewis (monitors), Adam Field (Canegreen PA tech), Bryon ‘Hotdog’ Tate

(production manager/Jay-Z f-o-h engineer), Dan Seal (Canegreen systems tech)

Jay-Z makes full use of the Adamson system at Glasgow’s SECC

PSNE Sept P46-68 Live 21/8/08 13:09 Page 50

September 2008 � www.prosoundnewseurope.com live 53

APPOINTMENTSf Kamil Swobodzinski, salesdirector advancedcommunication technology atEVI Audio since February, hasbeen given additionalresponsibilities, having beenappointed sales director criticalcommunication systems forEMEA. Formerly internationaltrade marketing manager (sales)with Blaupunkt, Swobodzinskiwill have responsibility forturnover and profitability.www.electrovoice.com

f UK distributor HenleyDesigns has appointed SimonPowell in his first position afteruniversity. The appointmentreinforces the new division thathas been established withinHenley to look after professionalaudio products. Describing hisnew appointment as his dreamjob, Powell says he is lookingforward to gaining experience ofmarketing, sales administrationand liaising with DJs, retailersand journalists.www.henleydesigns.co.uk

punch. But our use of Kevlar hasturned that around and we’re pro-ducing these T21s with big speakersthat work.

“The power handling of the T21s isenormous – they can take the full out-put of the Lab.gruppen FP6400 ampwhich powers each sub. One T21 cando the work of more than two 2 x 18s.”

The use of Kevlar also influencedSSE in its choice of Adamson.

“Adamson isn’t a massive company,but it’s big enough to do things properly while still being hungry andenthusiastic about its products. It hassome interesting developments with itsown components, particularly regard-ing the use of Kevlar cones,” said Penn.“When we ordered the system we asked about spares and they said wewouldn’t need any. Now we know why!

“Adamson does all the componentsitself, other than the compression drivers, because its feeling is that they are an exact science and only JBLmakes them consistently… and in myexperience I’d agree.

“In 2002 we got a 32-box JBL VerTecsystem with three high-frequency drivers per box. In the three years thatwe had the system we only wentthrough one diaphragm – and JBLreplaced it under warranty as they saidit was faulty. In my eyes, JBL are thepeople for high frequency.”

Ground fill and monitor speakerswere all Meyer – MJF212 wedges,a combination of Meyer MSL4 and 700HP for sidefills and PSW2drum fills.

Both front of house and monitormixes were handled by Digidesign D-Show Profile consoles, each accom-panied by a D-Show FOH rack and twoD-Show stage racks.

“I haven’t used many of the latestdigital desks, but I’ve a done a fair bitof work with Digidesign desks andused them with Mary J Blige in theUS, so I’m pretty comfortable with theProfile,” said Tate. “It’s so compactand you get access to 96 channelswithout moving!

“Navigation is quick and easy withnothing more than a couple of clicksfrom the main screen. The only outboard I’m using is a TC ElectronicD2 delay – all the reverbs and every-thing are in the Digidesign.

“The digital console is a huge help,especially on the festivals where we canplug into eight channels of BNC andgo. More and more folks are goingdown this route these days.”

In practice, Adamson more thanlived up to expectations with a spectacular and hassle-free show atthe SECC for both Jay-Z and tour support Mark Ronson. And if thesound quality of the show didn’t speak for itself, meeting the needs ofa perfectionist like Jay-Z and keepinga 4,000-strong Glasgow crowd happyspeaks volumes – not just for the system, but also the team behind the production. Qwww.adamsonproaudio.com

www.didgidesign.com

www.jbl.com

www.meyersound.comTour support was by Mark Ronson The Adamson array

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Jay-Z enjoyed a ‘spectacular and hassle-free’ show

PSNE Sept P46-68 Live 21/8/08 13:09 Page 53