Sugababes Overloaded!

Pop divas the Sugababes have just completed an extensive tour of the UK, Ireland and Europe to promote both their new album Overloaded and this year’s official Comic Relief single, a collaboration with Girls Aloud on the Aerosmith / Run DMC classic Walk This Way.

The dates started in Dublin on 27th March, taking in Belfast, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Cardiff, Sheffield, Glasgow, Newcastle, Brighton and London on April 13th, before the tour headed off to Europe.

With the tour taking in venues of a range of different sizes and configurations, a highly flexible PA setup ensured that the audiences at every venue enjoyed optimum quality sound. Audio rental company Concert Sound provided an EAW KF760 Series line array PA for the tour, with control by XTA DP448s and DP226s which were operated via XTA AudioCore software and a WISER wireless network.

“Front of house engineer Chris Madden wanted a system that was tried and tested,” says the tour’s system technician Aron Ross. “Concert Sound has used this rig in the venues we were touring many times before, so Chris knewthat we would be able to get good results.

The system comprised up to 14 KF760s, three KF761s, six KF750s, three KF755s and 12 SB1000 subs per side with 12 SB1000, with KF300s for infill and JF80s for lipfill. However the power and versatility of the system means that the full rig was only used at London’s Wembley Arena. “We didn't necessarily need to but, having carried it around the entire country, Chris was determined to use it all one night!” smiles Aron.

Two XTA DP448s were running the main hang of KF760 cabinets, which also gave Aron separate control over the top few boxes as well as the 761s being used as downfills. “The 448's in particular are very user friendly as well as having a vast amount of EQ,” Aron adds.

All the other zones in the system were run from six XTA DP226s, plus a master (and spare) at FOH, which the WISER network was connected to. This ran in a loop from FOH to stage left, stage right and back to FOH again. This meant that, if any breaks occurred in the control network, Aron would never lose control of any of the XTA processors.

Because of the mix of venues, Aron had to reconfigure the system almost every day. But thanks to the system’s ease of use, in particular the power of XTA’s AudioCore, it didn’t cause him any problems.

“It was a very straightforward task,” he says. “Using a different configuration of the 760/761 was as simple as changing the number of boxes and the angles that they hung at. Then it was just a case of using AudioCore to change the relative levels of the zones, depending on how close they were to the audience.

“I had the main hang zoned so I had control over the long throw at the top, the main hang and the downfill through AudioCore, so I rarely had to trim the amps!”

All the system EQ and delay was done within AudioCore and the WISER system allowed Aron to walk the room and make EQ adjustments as needed via a tablet.