ADLIB Lighting ? the sister company of Liverpool-based ADLIB Audio - has recently been restructured, and has invested substantially in new Martin Professional, James Thomas and Highend Systems technology to service a busy autumn of ‘live’ work.
This has included servicing dance guru Mylo’s first full production tour, with ADLIB supplying both lighting and sound.
Mylo’s LD Ian Tomlinson first worked with the band on a string of summer festivals, which then continued into the autumn with their own UK and Irish headline tour.
He worked closely with video designer Dave Ross from Phantom, to develop the stage visuals, taking the concept of moody back lighting, silhouetting and shadowing as a starting point. “The band prefer being lit from behind” he explains “It’s a challenge to start with, but once you get your head around the philosophy, there’s huge amounts you can actually do without lighting them directly. It’s a very challenging and interesting way to work”.
It was an asymmetric rig, to induce a bit of craziness to the stage, based around a front and back truss. He also included plenty of dramatic low, cross stage lighting in his design. The touring lighting and video rigs were boosted with additional kit for the two sold-out Brixton Academy shows.
The back truss contained 3 Martin MAC 550s and 3 High End Studio Beams, and the projection screen was hung below. Two horizontal sub-hung sections of trussing yielded two additional 550s and an Atomic strobe.
The front truss included four Studio Beams and four MAC 550s. The latter were used to light the band and for creating colour and beam chases to wash the stage and sweep out into the audience, transporting the energy from onstage out into the public.
On the floor, upstage of the backline, sat three more MAC 550s. Downstage were another two 550s each side, shooting across stage, plus another 3 Studio Beams at the back, lined up with the 550s. All the lights at the rear of stage were sat at different heights to give a sense of dynamics to the show.
Also on the floor were 6 boom bases with 3 metre scaff poles attached, three either side of the screen. The onstage pair had a Pixelline 1044 batten attached, the next pair of poles had a 1044 and a strobe, and the third pair was rigged with three 1044s and 2 strobes. The PixelLines were all at jaunty 45 degree angles.
Tomlinson used a PixelDrive system to run the PixelLines. He took some of Dave Ross’s video inputs that were in use on the screen, aiming for a mix of visual ‘looks’ that blended smoothly between screen video and lighting. He and ADLIB Lighting crew-mate Andy Rowe also created new video content from scratch from within the PixelDrive.
He chose an Avolites Diamond 4 for control. It was the first time he’s had a chance to utilise the console’s full power, “I’ve always been a Pearl user” he says, “So the D4 was incredibly easy to learn in a short time” ? he spent an afternoon playing with the desk in the warehouse before the tour went out. He likes the flexibility of the Cue Lists which he used extensively for the Mylo show ? all of which was operated live and improvised, as opposed to pre-programmed cues. “It’s a very exciting and energising way to operate” he enthuses. The D4 was also used to trigger the PixelDrive.
ADLIB Audio supplied a Nexo Alpha system for the tour, complete with system engineers Steve Cole (FOH) and Dave Bennett (monitors). Mylo’s FOH engineer is Jamie Butterworth and Iain Graham mixes monitors.
The system comprised 14 Nexo M3 enclosures in total for the left and right front arrays, plus fourteen B1 bass cabinets and eight S2 subs. At Brixton, they added an additional 6 cabinets a side, giving 13 highs per side in total plus another 2 bass and 2 sub a side. They also added some ADLIB FD delay stacks at the back of the hall ? which works well in that venue in terms of improving definition at the back of the room under the balcony.
It was powered by Camco amps, and new Nexo TD242 processors were used for system control.
They used BSS 366 crossovers at front of house, run full range to delay different parts of the system ? delays, in or outfills or the flown system. This gave “Huge flexibility and enabled us to tighten up the whole sound” explained Cole.
The shows were mixed at FOH on a Midas H3000 console. Cole used the matrix section of the desk to zone different areas of the system. ADLIB supplied a standard set of outboards including a TC M3000 reverb and multi FX unit, a Yamaha SPX 990 and a TC D2 delay, plus Drawmer gates and BSS 402 compressors.
The monitor console was a Midas XL3, running dbx Drive Rack processors into Crown amps and ADLIB’s new MP3 low profile wedges ? which are extremely popular. These were run in conjunction with ADLIB FD2 side fills and DF 4 subs, for a ‘full’ stage sound. The four band members all used wedges and the drummer also had wired headphones. He played both acoustic and electronic drums, making a total of 26 channels of input at FOH.