Via the technological wonderment of enhanced video, the late, legendary composer Frank Zappa joined his son Dweezil and band on stage in Brighton (England) in December as part of the long-running and critically acclaimed Zappa Plays Zappa show, with the band playing in its entirety in original track order one of Frank’s best known albums Apostrophe (‘).
The current line-up of Dweezil Zappa, Scheila Gonzalez, Pete Griffin, Billy Hulting, Jamie Kine, Ben Thomas, Joe Travers, and Chris Norton has toured the ZPZ show – a tribute to Frank’s prolific output of over 60 albums performed in exacting detail – around the world for several years now and continue to do so on a fairly regular basis, bringing the intricate delights of his unique musical styles to many die-hard Zappa fans, and this show brought the current 13-date European tour to an emphatic end although also sadly marking the departure of bassist Pete Griffin.
Mansfield-based ESS were contracted to supply audio for the UK dates, including Turbosound Aspect point source loudspeakers. The band and crew were relaxed and on top form for this last show of the tour at the Brighton Dome, with the iconic venue providing the perfect surroundings for ESS’s Aspect rig to get to grips with the band’s complex arrangements and the room’s conducive acoustics.
ESS systems tech Andy Hague explains his preference for deploying a point source system in a theatre-style venue like Brighton. The Dome, which seats approximately 2,000 people, is typical of a huge number of UK venues whose origins date back to the late 19th century in that it features a balcony, which of course lends the room its intimate atmosphere. And it’s well known that utilizing a PA with continuous vertical coverage in such a large, potentially reflective surface can end badly.
“My approach is to try to point audio specifically where it’s needed to deliver just the right amount of energy, and try not to over-excite the room with unwanted reflections – what we’re actually trying to do is what the Americans like to call sound reinforcement,” Hague explains.
Hague describes the Aspect setup: “We’re flying four TA-890 high packs a side off a two-wide bar, and ground-stacked we’ve got four high packs and five low packs. Three low packs in a vertical column on the outside and two lows underneath so we get the height and required vertical spread from the high packs without being visually obtrusive. Granted it’s not an optimum configuration of low packs from a coupling point of view, but by subtle use of the gain controls we can achieve what we want to do. In Brighton this configuration totally minimised sightline issues.
“The flown TA-890H boxes are splayed at 25 degrees and the high packs on the ground are tilted down and up to give the right vertical coverage. For front fills we have TQ-440s and for outer fills again TQ-440s. Everything is run left / right because there is some fairly major stereo panning on this show. It’s all on XTA processing and MC2 amplifiers.”
Front of house engineer Glynn Wood, who is full time with Dweezil Zappa and also lists Vanessa Mae as a long-term account, is no stranger to Turbosound. “I’ve been using Turbosound boxes for pretty much as long as they’ve been around so I knew they would be fine even though I’d only come across Aspect once before. The TMS-3 remains a good sounding box, as does Flashlight and Floodlight, and I’m happy to walk into a gig and see Turbosound in the air or on the floor.
“Of course all PAs sound different, and Flashlight sounds different to Aspect which sounds different to TMS-3s, but what Turbosound has is a sound that will cut cleanly and not abrasively – sometimes it’s so clean you don’t realize just how loud it is. I rather like that and it’s no small wonder that Pink Floyd used Turbosound for so many years.
“I had used the Aspect system once before in Philadelphia in December last year and I was rather intrigued by these rather strange shaped boxes. I like the throw of the Aspect boxes, they do seem to go for quite a distance and with some judicious graphics I can make them sound very clear and articulate. With Andy as my system tech – a man who knows the system infinitely better than I – we were able on this tour to get it sounding as I would like it every day with relative ease.
“The rig can give a lot of bass/low mid energy which I prefer to reduce, particularly because we have a lot of vocals with ZPZ, eight in fact. I also am a Waves plug in endorser and used the excellent Q10 Paragraphic EQ which is truly superb for system EQ, it’s incredibly smooth and a little dip with one of those seems to be equal to a much bigger lump with other EQ’s. I find the Aspect boxes to be a little fierce around the 8kHz area and the Q10 deals with that remarkably well, but they can be very smooth, very clean and can project vocals very well even in a busy mix.”
