More than 60,000 fans recently converged on Estadio Azteca for the Mexico City stop on David Guetta’s “Nothing but the Beat” world tour, with Audio Systems del Norte was providing sound for the event, including Adamson Systems Energia E15 line arrays.
System tuning for the event was handled by SonoTribe Audio Consultants, with technical support provided by Showco Mexico, the local distributor for Adamson products.
“This was the first time that David Guetta’s crew had used the E15s,” notes Mauricio Alva, Showco manager. “As soon as the levels had been set to their specification, Es Siahi (FOH) was asking about the E15 system. He loved the way they sounded and wanted to know everything about them.”
Oscar Gamas, CEO and system engineer for SonoTribe Audio Consultants, states that the system was chosen because “with a world-class artist like David Guetta you don’t want to leave anything to chance. Estadio Azteca is one of the biggest venues in the world and we needed the headroom that the E15s are capable of achieving to ensure that we get an accurate frequency response versus SPL dispersement.”
The system was led by 48 Energia E15s for main and out fill arrays, joined by eight Adamson Spektrix boxes for down fill and 24 stacked T-21 subwoofers. The system also included 32 Adamson Y10s, 12 stacked Y10 subs, and eight M15 stage monitors.
Audio Systems del Norte and Showco used a combination of Adamson Shooter and Blueprint to verify even coverage. Processing and amplification was covered with the Lake LM series with Lab.gruppen amplifiers, with the show mixed on a Yamaha PM5D console.
Oscar Gamas tuned the system using Rational Acoustics Smaart v7, stating “I didn’t have to use many EQ filters to correct the system and the frequency response was even and smooth. The balance between the E15s and the T21s was fantastic and we had tons of headroom to find the accuracy we were looking for.
“The tonal balance of the low end of the line arrays was surprisingly accurate and apart from a little more gain for the delays we didn’t have to change anything.”
