For the second year in a row, Delicate Productions supported Maroon 5 with a Martin Audio MLA system for two celebratory New Year’s Eve shows at the Mandalay Bay Event Center.
The Event Center, a modern 12,000-seat venue, “is fortunately one of the better sounding casino rooms,” according to Jim Ebdon, FOH Engineer for Maroon Five.
“In these venues it’s all about the coverage,” Jim explains, “and what’s great about the MLA system is that it covers so well. It’s a smaller box and very versatile. We work with Delicate a lot and I trust them, so I leave it up to (President of Delicate Productions) Jason Alt and FOH Tech Makoto Araki to set up.
“They do a great job shooting the room, making the analysis and figuring out how many boxes they’re going to need and how the side hangs should be configured depending on the amount of tickets we’ve sold. Maroon 5 usually sell out these shows, so the hangs tend to go right round the sides of the stage in a 270 configuration. And with MLA, we’re able to control the sound well to avoid reflections.”
The setup for these shows consisted of 11 Martin Audio MLA, one MLD (downfill) and 12 MLA Compact enclosures per side with 12 MLX subwoofers, plus 6 W8LMD and four WT2s for side fills. In addition to Alt and Araki, the Delicate crew included Craig Robinson (Monitor Tech) and Russ Cunningham (Stage Tech).
Asked how the system sounded, Ebdon said, “MLA is a very flat system, it doesn’t color the sound in any way, which is great. And I find it to be very accurate as well; the high frequencies are smooth and extremely easy to listen to. Going down the frequency range, there’s a very seamless transition into the subwoofer. With many systems, you hear the main flown PA and then the sub, it sounds like two separate sound sources. Not with MLA. It’s a real full-range sound system.
“We travel a lot and I’m lucky enough to plug into all kinds of sound systems these days. When it comes to MLA, I don’t even need to get into what kind of drivers or amps Martin Audio uses because it sounds good, and that’s all that matters.”
