NLFX Professional (Bemidji, MN) provided sound reinforcement headed by Electro-Voice X-Line Advance line arrays for a recent tour by Contemporary Christian group Phillips, Craig & Dean.
The band’s front of house engineer, Calvin Barnes, was excited with the opportunity to work with the new X-Line Advance system in support of the talented group, which recently won a Dove Award for Inspirational Album of the Year.
“We travel with full production for Phillips, Craig & Dean, because it’s the best way to maintain consistency,” Barnes explains. “We carried 16 of the Electro-Voice X2-212/90 boxes as mains. This was my first tour with the new system, and I really like the way it behaves. Tons of headroom and extremely even coverage, plus it tunes easily and takes equalization well. I was impressed with how well it adapted to different spaces.”
Concert venues for the tour included large houses of worship, traditional theater venues and multi-purpose community centers. Typically, two main arrays of eight X2-212/90 line array modules were deployed, augmented by eight EV concert sound subwoofers powered by EV TG7 amplifiers.
In addition, six EVU-2082 compact loudspeakers served as front fills across the stage lip, while at each tour stop, system engineer Ben Stowe of NLFX used EV Line Array Prediction Software (LAPS 3) to configure the system coverage for the venue.
“LAPS 3 does a great job,” Barnes states. “No matter the venue, the coverage was so uniform that we were able to get 500 Hz, 3K and 8K all within 2-3 dB of each other, everywhere in the room, night after night. I could have picked my mix position anywhere on the main floor most nights—it was that consistent.”
X-Line Advance uses a Mid-Band Hydra (MBH) device to optimize coupling between boxes. “I’ve mixed on just about every major line array, and many of them have a funky midrange build-up that you need to compensate for,” Barnes notes. “With the X2, Electro-Voice really got the midrange right. It’s a real step forward.”
The rigging system also provided efficiencies. X2-212/90 boxes were stacked on dollies in groups of four, with the main connection pins in place, Barnes and Stowe would use the compression method to insert the splay angle pins, then attach the group of four to a Genie lift. The procedure would then be repeated, allowing the team to fly both eight-box arrays, positioned for proper coverage, in about 20 minutes.
“You can’t do that with every rigging system,” Barnes concludes. “The Electro-Voice X2 makes it super easy, and the hardware is very robust, which give you lots of confidence on tour.”
