Celine Dion's recent tour presented Chief Systems Engineer Francois Desjardins with a dilemma: how to rig a good sound system as fast as possible. Dan Daley asks him how Meyer's new self-powered cabinets provided the solution.

When looking for explanations for French-Canadian songstress Celine Dion's massive global success, the first that come to mind are her voice and her choice of songs, such as the current hit single 'It's All Coming Back To Me Now' from her seven-times platinum album Falling Into You. There is, however, another level of Celine Dion that speaks from the spirit of a world that is at once apart from the rest of Canada — and the world — and at peace with itself. Like the Quebecian Culture, Celine Dion, a Quebec native, sounds sure of herself, yet part of her appeal lies in the vulnerability palpable in her voice, a voice from a tightly knit culture surrounded by a larger one.

UP CLOSE & INTIMATE

Getting that voice across to millions of listeners across the world has been the task of Solotech, Inc, the Montreal-based sound company (which will celebrate its 20th anniversary in April) that has provided Dion's interface with her audiences for almost as long as she has been working professionally. "What we had to do was project all those things about Celine in a much larger context than we ever had before," explains Chief Systems Engineer Francois Desjardins. "Solotech and Celine grew up together in a lot of ways, so we have come to know her in a very deep sense. We know the kind of power that she has as a singer and as a person. And on the tour we did in 1996, we had to try to convey that in much larger venues. It's one thing to bring a level of intimacy through sound in a small theatre — the Meyer MSL-3 speakers that we used on previous tours gave us wonderful projection for those venues — but once you get to the arena level, you need to think it through again. And the Meyer MSL-5 and other Meyer components we used gave us just what we were looking for once again."

Desjardins took on the task of designing an arena-level touring sound rig that would maintain the intimacy of Dion's performances, keeping her vocals crystal clear and the band sounding distinct and punchy, but which would also project all the nuances of her performance to 20,000 seat environments. He began working on the rig months before a brief pre-tour stint in Australia in March, 1996; the official tour kicked off in Dion's native Canada the following month. The current system, designed by Desjardins, in close collaboration with FOH Mixer Denis Savage, consists of eight Meyer MSL-5 main cabinets, 16 Meyer DS-2 mid-bass cabinets, two Meyer MSL-4 self-powered systems, and three Meyer MSL-2 cabinets for near-fill per side. A total of 20 Meyer 650 R-2 sub-woofers were split between each of the stage's front floor corners along with additional Meyer UPM, MSL-2, and MSL-4 cabinets positioned for front-fill duty.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

The main left and right arrays are flown using a custom rigging design devised by Desjardins. "We wanted to be able to get the rig up and down as quickly as possible, since many of the tour stops were one-nighters," explains Desjardins. "Using standard rig shackles takes too much time, so we came up with a steel-tubed C-channel with a metal cube in the middle that holds two pins, one for the top cabinets of the array and one for bottom cabinets. It's quite simple and not really all that scientific," he laughs. "But it worked, and gave us the efficiency that we wanted. We were able to fly the rig in a little over an hour for each side."

The entire system is powered — with the obvious exception of the Meyer MSL-4 self-powered systems — by Crown amplifiers. Each MSL-5 is driven by a Crown MA5000VZ, each DS-2 mid-bass bin uses a Crown MA2400, and the MSL-2 cabinets are powered by Crown MA-5000VZ amps, and the 650 R-2 subs use the Crown MA1200. The 25-foot high array was hung approximately 30 feet above the stark, simple stage set (designed by Yves Aucoin) and about eight feet ahead of the stage lip.

In its final form, the system has a capability of 120dB SPL (peak) at 100 feet, with a throw of approximately 250 feet with perfect intelligibility. — and a total 210-degree field of coverage. Each MSL-5 cabinet covers 30 degrees horizontal and 40 degrees vertical. "[Intelligibility] was a major factor from everyone's point of view," comments Desjardins, "from Celine to her management company and everyone else. It really shows you how much emphasis is placed on the lyrics. There could be no compromise when it came to vocal intelligibility."

The newest additions to the constantly evolving sound system are the Meyer MSL-4 self-powered speakers. Desjardins and Savage immediately saw the practical benefits of an integrated speaker/amplifier combination in terms of ease of installation, a perfect match of power and transducers, and reduced shipping weight. In addition, the MSL-4's speaker/amplifier/enclosure system was engineered to have full control over all of its own sub-systems, providing integrated component self-protection from the possibility of electrical and thermal damage. However, he was at first uncertain whether or not it would represent a compromise in sound. All other considerations were secondary to absolute sonic excellence on this outing. "When you put something into the rig for the first time, there are always concerns about how it works with an existing design," he says, "particularly a self-powered system. But what we found was that there was absolutely no reason for concern, either about the reliability of the MSL-4 or about its sonic quality. Both aspects were as much or more than we could have asked for."

Once the Celine crew — Desjardins, Savage, Monitor Mixer Daniel Baron, and Assistant Engineers Marc Beauchamp and Marc Theriault — had gained some experience with the MSL-4s, the benefits of the self-power system became quite clear. "All you need to do is run up an AC power line and an XLR cable with signal," he says. "It eliminated the need to have to deal with different types of AC power for different countries in Europe and the rest of the world. It saved weight and space on the trucks. It simply made our lives a lot easier. But none of that would have mattered, if the enclosure didn't sound good. However, the MSL cabinets were everything that we could have asked for in a large-scale sound system."

After the initial positive results with the MSL-4s in the main array, more cabinets were added for additional applications. One example is a delay cluster that is placed further into the hall beyond the main system, hanging about 120 feet up directly above the FOH position, which provided additional projection and clarity into the further reaches of venues. This was also helped by the self-powered Meyer MSL-4 speaker systems. "What the additional cluster did was enable us to work around physical problems in various venues," Desjardins explains. "For instance, sometimes a low-hanging scoreboard causes an acoustical shadow over a part of the room. Once we had a reliable self-powered enclosure, it was much easier to use a remote cluster to work around acoustical problems like that." The fast rigging trick that Desjardins devised also helped as it bought the crew the extra hour it took to add the delay cluster to the system at each venue.

"There could be no compromise when it came to vocal intelligibility."

SOUND COMPONENTS

Other components of the sound system included a pair of Soundcraft Europa FOH consoles — a 48-channel board and a 32-channel sidecar desk. In addition, a Yamaha ProMix 01, with a snapshot automation system that Denis Savage had programmed for every song, was used as an outboard mixer for guitars and the 11 percussion microphones. Monitor Mixer Daniel Baron provides separate stereo mixes for each member of the nine-piece band — bass, drums, guitar, percussion, two keyboard players, and three background singers — on the 60 x 48 foot stage, who used Garwood in-ear monitors. Monitors were mixed through a Soundcraft SM-24 console, which Desjardins notes was one of the very few live sound consoles that could handle 24 separate monitor mixes from the board's 48 inputs and 32 additional inputs from a small adjacent sidecar console. One other piece of unconventional monitoring was the 'shaker' boards placed beneath the drum and keyboard positions. "The in-ear monitors are great, but they leave something to be desired in the low frequencies," says Desjardins. "The shaker adds low-frequency resonance to the monitors."

The microphone setup for the tour was as simple as everything else was complex. Celine herself has an affinity for the workhorse Shure SM58, run through a Millennia HV-3 mic preamp and Focusrite Red processing. Beyer TGX (kick), a Shure SM57 (snare), and SM98 (toms), AKG 414 (overheads), a Neumann KM150 (hat) were on the drum kit; guitar maps were also miked with Beyer TGX 580s; percussion used several Neumann KM 184 and Shure SM98 mics. "Microphone placement was important, as was the sound system," says Desjardins. "But people often forget that you have to start with a good band on stage — that's what Celine has. They are all top-notch players and they really fused together for this tour."

Other signal processing at the show's FOH position included a Lexicon 480L, PCM 80 and PCM 90, a TC Electronics TC2290, and an Eventide H3000 harmonizer, which Savage says he uses to thicken up the background vocals.

The shows were all recorded using an eight-track Sony PCM-800 digital multitrack deck, with the Europa serving as the recording console. Desjardins says that some of the tracks may be used in forthcoming mixes for television and clubs.

LARGE AS LIFE

Bob McCarthy, Meyer's Director of Technical Training, notes that this is one of the largest Meyer systems currently out on the road and travelling with a Meyer SIM II system. "This is an incredibly well thought out system design," says McCarthy. "Desjardins and Savage have built in a large amount of flexibility by splitting the system up into sub-systems for alignment and control purposes. Allowing separate control of gain, delay time, and equalization for each sub-system really makes it possible to offer a level of consistent quality from venue to venue, night to night, seat to seat."

"The SIM II system is amazing," says Savage. "For the first time, we have a very fast and accurate method of measuring and tuning the sound system, not just at the mix position but for every area of the venue. It really helps me to know that what I am hearing as I mix the show is truly representative of the audience experience throughout the hall."

Desjardins agrees, conceding that he is "very fussy" about shooting each venue anew, regardless of whether Dion has played it before. "I'm very much into tuning the system for each show," he says. "For instance, we did two days in a row at Wembley Stadium, and I tuned the system from the start each day. We have a basic start-up setting, stored in the two Yamaha D2040 crossovers, which we use as a line driver and controller from the mix position, and go from there. I'll align each section of the PA using the SIM System, starting with the top cabinets and down through the subs. There is always some sort of interaction between the room and the speakers, and SIM allows us to really understand what is happening and adjust for the best possible performance in any given hall."

Desjardins and his crew are already gearing up for the next round of touring with Dion, which will take them through Japan, North America and back to Europe. It's a remarkable effort that's been focused around Dion's voice, but one that Desjardins says is well worth it. "When you listen to the show and hear her sound as clear as she does, and see the reaction to that voice in the audience," he says, "you're ready to do it again every night.