ZZ TOP ROLLS TROUGH CANADA WITH BPG & MARTIN AUDIO

After a successful US 'Double Down Live' tour, the legendary 3-piece from Texas headed north of the border for a string of shows in Prince George, Dawson Creek, Penticton, Kamloops, Abbotsford, Everett, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina and Calgary.

With leading-edge Briere Production Group Inc. of Burnaby, British Columbia handling the production chores, the tour was in the words of Chris Briere, 'a standard Arena run, but we also had a couple of theater dates, so we needed a flexible, compact and powerful system to handle the different types of coverage needed. The Martin Audio arrays were typically 16 W8LCs per side plus 8 W8LCs per side for side hangs/outfills. This rig was flexible enough to accommodate both single and dual point hangs depending on available points in some venues.

ZZ's big 'Brazos Bottom' sound was provided by 30 Martin Audio WSX subs powered by Martin MA 2.8 and 4.2 amplifiers. FOH (Engineer: Toby Francis) featured a Digico SD8 console with Dolby Lakes and Eventide processing, while Monitors (Engineer: Jacob Mann) also used a SD8 with Sennheiser microphones and IEM .

In preparation for the tour, the Briere Production Group team worked directly with Martin Audio engineers in London to pioneer a Cardioid Sub design for the WSX. As Briere adds, 'The result worked exactly as designed and our System Tech, Rico also worked on other sub-pattern stacks & designs throughout the tour.' The crew used Martin's Viewpoint software day to day and Display for the first date of the tour.

Asked to comment about the sound, Francis and Mann pointed out that the Martin Audio was a 'good, clean sounding box with fast rigging and great coverage.'

For more information, please call 519.747.5853, email infona@martinaudio.com