Ed Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour: FOH Engineer & System Tech

In this video from Audio Technology Magazine, System engineer, Charlie Albin and FOH Engineer, Chris Marsh walk us through the PA set up for Ed Sheeran’s epic 2023 Mathematics Tour. This video was shot in Melbourne, at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) where he performed to 215,000 fans over 2 nights.

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Ed Sheeran’s Mathematics Tour: PA Tour with FOH Engineer & System Tech

Video Text:

hi I’m Chris Marsh I’m the sound engineer and production manager for the Ed sheer mathematics tour and this is uh Charlie Albin I am the audio systems engineer for the Ed Sheeran mathematics tool this show was uh put together a in late in 2019 and we knew that we needed a lightweight p8 to make this thing work and we went to Maya at that point and said I love the Leo I always have used love to Leo but it’s really not going to work for this I don’t know how to to tell you but I’m gonna need to look for another box and they said don’t we think we’ve got the box you need in in development so from that point onwards we got heavily involved with them with the development of Panther as it came about and it’s no coincidence it ended up being the perfect box for this show the piez is built exclusively around Panther Line Road speakers the bulk of which are the L horns the long throw horn we’re using 212 Panther in total that is

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divided up with six arrays around the center of the stage each array having 14 speakers in it they cover the floor of our venues and transition into eight Panther arrays which cover from the lower ball seats to the upper bowl seats of the eight arrays every single one has 16 Panther per array uh the low frequency component of the show is all handled by 1100 lfcs we’re using 78 in total which is six stacks of three around the stage in a cardioid configuration and then we have six hangs of ten uh suspended off the masts uh again in cardioid and rounding out the set is 22 leopards which are our front fills and they’re hung on some custom brackets around the stage oh in fact two x Four Seasons so I think we’ve counted up 324 speakers in token some practical considerations it’s

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smaller it’s lighter weight which saves us on uh you know truck space and in terms of this structure behind us the engineering parameters of how much weight we can actually suspend from the steel cable were met exclusively by Panther it’s still a high SPL cabinet a true Long throw cabinet but they’ve really improved on the horn design so it’s a incredibly smooth horizontal and vertical coverage it’s a proper 80 degree box which minimizes the number of arrays that we might need to cover a 360 venue like this hearing the system for the first time was in the stadium in Dublin then the first time I heard Ed’s actual Voice through it was when he walked on stage and said hello Dublin so it was very incredibly nerve-wracking but what I did in or I instantly found that I was grabbing an output Vader for my near field x40s believing that they were still on and they were not it really everything was was right in front of me it felt like it was near fields

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when we’re running Milan audio to our Panther we are now running fully digital from from the from the microphone all the way to the to the speaker amplifier and we’re Sennheiser 6000 system which outputs on aes3 running into our digico Network um and then it comes over to PA world and runs AVB audio direct into the amplifier module so I’m not sure if we’re the first to do it but certainly on perhaps on this scale to run a length of digital signal chain in that way is relatively new so we’ve got some great feedback from after the first show of you know from our team who’ve been around the venue and sort of comparing SPL levels and going if you guys we’re within you know one to two DB from like the front row to the back seat like that’s that’s phenomenal and I think yeah I believe that you know it is pushing the balance of what we’re able to do versus previous previous tours absolutely