Rolling Again: grandMA2 Hits the Road with The Dave Matthews Band

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The Dave Matthews Band is back on the road this summer with a North American tour preceding the release of their album, “Away From The World,” due out in September. Accompanying the band are 2 x grandMA2 full-size, 1 x grandMA2 light, 2 x MA NSP (Network Signal Processor) and 2 x MA NPU (Network Processing Unit).

The equipment was specified by the band’s longtime lighting designer Fenton Williams and supplied by Theatrical Media Services Inc. (TMS) of Omaha, Nebraska.

Williams, who’s also the overall visual designer for the tour, acts as co-lighting operator for the shows running one grandMA2 full-size while Aaron Stinebrink from TMS runs the second desk. “Fenton is very active and likes to augment on the fly during the show,” says TMS’s Pete Franks who serves as system crew chief on the road. “That’s why there are two consoles always operating front of house – and there’s a grandMA2 light on hand for back up. All are networked together and can control lighting and the Green Hippo Hippotizer.”

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Franks notes that Williams transitioned to the grandMA2 after almost a decade of using grandMA “series 1” consoles. “We never considered using another brand when looking for a new console,” he says. “The new units are great with much more functionality. We’ve had no failure with the new units since we started using them.”

A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting in North America.

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MA Lighting International, based in Paderborn, Germany, is the dedicated sales, support and service entity for the renowned grandMA control systems, digital dimming systems, networking tools and media servers of MA Lighting Technology, based near Wuerzburg, Germany. The product range offers cutting-edge solutions for control and dimming, including the award-winning grandMA/grandMA2 consoles, the popular Lightcommander, the MA onPC command wing and reliable digital dimmer racks and packs. With its innovative MA VPU (Video Processing Unit) MA bridges the lighting and video worlds.