Hitting nine US cities this Fall, Verizon's “How Sweet the Sound” is both a celebration of gospel music and nationwide search for America's best church choir. Hosted by Grammy winners CeCe Winans and Donald Lawrence, along with resident tour judge Marvin Sapp, this is the fourth year the “How Sweet the Sound” tour is benefitting from L-Acoustics Rental Network company Firehouse Productions, which is carrying a full K1 loudspeaker system to each arena.
Eight church choirs--four small and four large--are given the chance to compete for the regional prize and opportunity to move on to the final round staged at L.A.'s Staples Center on October 28. Each choir is accompanied by its own band, which can range from two to a dozen musicians all sharing the same backline. Adding up the band inputs, 20 large diaphragm side-address mics set up in fixed positions around the choir risers, and production inputs--including host mics, celebrity performers, judge mics, and various video sources--approximately 80 inputs feed back to the tour's FOH mix position.
According to FOH Engineer Jody Elff, the typical PA setup for the tour is comprised of 16 K1 with four Kara downfills per side, plus eight K1-SB flown directly behind each K1 main in a cardioid configuration. Furthermore, outfill hangs of a dozen Kudo per side address the far left and right seating areas, with all of the L-Acoustics systems driven and processed by a total of 30 LA8 amplified controllers.
"With no delay systems or ground-stacked PA, this tour affords an extremely clean visual of the stage from every seat," says Elff. "Suffice to say that K1 is a remarkable, responsive, transparent, delightful system, and--from an engineer's point of view--a joy to mix on. Our coverage is excellent in every venue, and the quality, clarity, and coverage are the most consistently good of any PA I've had the pleasure to use."
David Stallbaumer at NYC-based Event Resources, the tour's production company, adds, "The power and focus of the K1 PA is unmatched, and the fact that it so successfully keeps the energy focused toward the audience and away from the stage and choir mics is critical to the success of the show. We believe that there is currently no other system on the market that could give us a better result than what we're achieving right now with K1."
L-Acoustics' flagship large-format enclosure isn't the only system drawing attention; Kara has also received its share of praise from the audio crew. "The leap in quality of the Kara box over dV-Dosc is remarkable," says Systems Tech Jamie Pollock. "The improvement in high-end clarity is spectacular and is as much a step forward as the K1 is over the original V-Dosc. The efficiency and performance is noticeably better. Also, the consistency of sound between all of the various enclosures in the system is exceptional."?
Verizon's “How Sweet the Sound” tour provides a unique platform for church choirs to share and celebrate their faith and talent with people across the country. For additional details on the 2011 tour, visit www.howsweetthesound.com.
