Houston-based LD Systems added a Solid State Logic Live L550 Plus mixing console to its sound equipment rental inventory earlier this year, and it was initially put to work at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the largest livestock exhibition and rodeo in the world, which runs for three weeks every year.
“We decided to make the purchase of an additional SSL Live console so that we could have redundant L550 Plus systems managing the live announcers and program content mix for one of our largest annual events, the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo,” says Thomas Ruffner, audio department operations manager for LD Systems. “The engineer at this position manages roughly 50 sources, including announcers’ mics, all video rolls, and a multitude of FX mics placed throughout the rodeo competition arena, as well as nightly live performances of the National Anthem.”
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLSR) attracts more than 2.5 million people each year to NRG Park. LD Systems’ Production Services and Systems Integration Teams work together to provide HLSR event production services, stadium audio, concert lighting, HD video screens, custom truss structures, rigging equipment, technical crews and logistics support throughout NRG Park for the entire month surrounding the event.
Ruffner adds, “Both our primary and secondary console packages consist of an L550 Plus surface, two ML 32.32 SuperAnalogue stageboxes and they all share a central Blacklight II MADI Concentrator. This allows us to split 64 channels across two ML 32.32’s per surface but have all four ML 32.32’s accessible on either of our L550 Plus surfaces, which makes redundancy options with the system very impressive.”
This year’s performers in the evenings following the rodeo events included Brooks & Dunn, Zac Brown Band, New Kids on The Block, The Chainsmokers, Machine Gun Kelly, Kenny Chesney, Chris Stapleton, Brad Paisley and Luke Bryan, among others. In addition, two SSL System T broadcast audio platforms installed in a broadcast production control room and a music control room near the stadium also accepted certain microphones and other sources specific to the rodeo competitions from LD Systems over the installed Dante AoIP infrastructure.
With the rodeo over, Ruffner says, “We are preparing for an increase in demand of our L550 Plus systems on corporate productions, as well as fly date support across the many festivals that we’re fortunate to be involved with every season. We do think highly of the platform. It’s without a doubt one of the best-sounding desks on the market.”
