Abba were among the first to reserve seats when Elton John announced that — after several years of retirement from the performing scene — he had decided to do another tour which was to start at the Concerthaus, Stockholm, just a few miles from the residence of the four members of the group.

The Elton John tour, 'A Single Man', differed from most not only by the modest number of musicians involved on the stage (just Elton John himself and Ray Cooper, who did an extraordinary act which fully lived up to the shows of the past), but also by the new PA system specially designed by Harwell Enterprises in cooperation with TASCO Inc. The system meets the extended needs of a more natural, linear-responding speaker system with a greater dynamic flexibility.

The opening night in Stockholm was therefore rather exciting, not least due to the fact that sound engineer Clive Franks didn't get to hear the new set of cabinets in adequate environments before the start of the concert tour. He was, however, very pleased with the new system from the very beginning when he tried out a prototype in comparison with a standard system in London before actually deciding to order more cabinets for the tour.

After one of the concerts in Copenhagen, Clive Franks and Nick Blyth (respectively sound and technical engineer of the tour) gave me a first-hand description of their own experience with the new PA speaker system and spoke of some of the sound engineering techniques involved in creating the rich live piano sound which practically does away with the need for a full band.

Clive Franks' and Elton John's friendship has lasted for more than 10 years, during which period they have frequently worked together in the studio. Besides, Elton is the only artist Clive ever worked for on the road. Clive's background as a studio engineer results in a serious striving towards achieving the same sound on the road as in the studio, and his microphone choice is indicative of his close relationship to studio sound. Rock groups most often make use of the sturdy SM57 or SM58 as they can stand minor temperature changes, uncareful handling and transportation without getting damaged in the least. Clive, however, chooses the AKG C451 to suit his purpose. As seen in fig 1, 451s are widely used (except on the snare, congas, cymbals and chimes). Also worth observing is that Ray Cooper, in addition to his stationary microphones, carries a small radio mic to pick up the instrument he might be carrying, such as the tambourine — he moves about a lot on stage.

Clive and Nick both describe the AKG 451 as a delicate microphone to work with. It travels so well that if you are not careful with it, it picks up everything happening on the stage and easily distorts if things become too loud.

Elton's own Steinway grand, brought along on the tour, is picked up by two AKG 451s placed inside the closed hood, one for the bass end, the other for the mid/hi end. A Helpinstill — consisting of five pickups — is placed under the strings by the hammers and is balanced out by Clive before each concert in order to have just one output for the desk. In addition to that two specially designed separate piano pickups are stuck up underneath the sound board — one by the low end, the other by the high — and the whole frequency spectrum should thus be sufficiently covered to give Clive such a variety of possibilities that he achieves a well-balanced sound picture. The special pickups give a good bass and mid response, while the Helpinstill is lousy for the mid/high but extraordinarily good for the low end. Elton's left hand more or less replaces a bass player in this way.

The AKG microphones add crispness to the mids and highs, and all five piano outputs are fed to a stage box splitter with buffer amp. These are then routed to the main Midas 32/8 desk where Clive, with the assistance of Nick, tries to maintain full control.

Nick: It can be a bit tough at times. The order of the songs are planned ahead of each concert, but it can of course happen that Elton switches them around, and although it might seem very simple to set the knobs once and for all before the gig, we cannot do it that way — at least not on this tour.

Clive: Yes, each song calls for a quite specific signal routing. For instance I use the Eventide Harmonizer set on 1.24 on the Roy Rogers song when Elton comes to the part that goes '...tonight'. That part lasts a second or two, so it is very important I hit it just right to give the intended double harmony effect.

I noticed Clive and Nick were phasing quite a bit; what was their technique for that?

Clive: Yes, we're using two phasing units, one Gelf phaser and one we call a BARF-box phaser which actually was developed by our piano and electronic expert Adrian Collee. One is panned to the left and the other to the right. So when they're phasing out-of-phase it sounds like they're phasing in stereo. I use it quite a bit on the piano breaks.

Nick: Clive also tried to get some phasing on the cymbals, but it is very critical. If you push the fader too far it feeds back.

Clive: The Mavis 15/4 stage mixer behind the left PA bank is fed the special effects in order to allow Elton and Ray to listen in on the stage monitors. There are three monitors behind Ray plus one by the Steinway and one by the Yamaha electric grand piano. This electric grand, incidentally, was specially developed with 88 keys for this tour and flown over on the third day of rehearsals. It's a nice instrument.

I wondered is it difficult to mix the five inputs from the Steinway into a smooth sound, do they use any limiting?

Nick: No, none at all. The secret lies within the PA system being used. It can really be driven hard without the risk of the bass cracking up and the mid dipping out as it used to do with the old systems. Although we brought two dbx 160 limiters along, there just doesn't seem to be much point in using them. The PA allows great dynamic variations while still being near enough flat and smooth, even in the bass end where old systems tend to rumble.

I thought this might be ideal for Elton John because he is not a rock'n'roll band, but did they think the system could also be applied to 'rock music'?

Nick: Quite definitely. Clive tried out the PA in Stockholm with some rock'n'roll tapes he'd brought along, and the bass was incredible, real tight. Very clean with no distortion. And the low/mid is really powerful. Just what rock bands want. If you've worked with a lot of top bands (which Nick has done for more than eight years) you know that if you turn up the volume of one of the previous PA systems to overcome the noise on the stage you don't get a smooth response anymore, it sounds horrible. And although you're sitting by the mixer there's nothing you can do about it. But this new system sounds good and wonderful even if there was blood coming out of your ears and people dying on the front row. It would still sound good... but very, very loud. Each stack is driven by a BGW and a Crown amplifier of around 1000 watts. Four stacks are therefore, in total, roughly 4-5000 watts, which is very little compared to rock bands. But that system is so efficient that if we pushed the faders up, everybody in the concert hall would scream. If we had four times the amount of watts on that system with a rock band we'd bang the back wall off! That's how efficient it is!

Each stack of PA speakers consists of one JBL 2420 high horn and one Gauss HF4000 mid-horn unit. The two Harwell TASCO units covering the low/mid and the low end of the frequency spectrum contain, respectively, two Electrovoice 12in speakers and two 15 in Gauss speakers. The two 4-way TASCO-designed crossovers are switched to have crossover points at 250Hz, 2000Hz and 5000Hz, and the two Klark-Teknik 27-way graphic equalisers give an almost completely linear response with tiny variations that the ear hardly notices. There are no filters built into the cabinets, nor any sound absorbing material.

The cabinets themselves are constructed of plywood, thick and laminated, but this is as far as my information goes: the principle of the cabinet construction is considered a secret. Anybody having heard this linear and efficient system will know why.

Like Abba and their engineer Claes af Geiyeaftam, several professional musicians, producers and engineers have attended the Elton John concert tour throughout Europe. And no doubt more will as the tour goes through Britain and possibly on to Israel and Russia (where the show is expected to be transmitted over the Soviet satellite system). Those not having had the chance of reserving a seat while the tour was still around in their neighbourhood are therefore left with the choice of either going to Moscow... or of waiting until Abba, who are now considering the system for their world tour, arrive later this year. The system is radical, no matter where in the world you take it.