Sex and Love for Adlib with Enrique

The multi-talented, multi-lingual and multi-award winning Enrique – who also enjoys a highly successful writing, record producing and acting career – as well as performing to an enormous fanbase worldwide – has sold over 100 million albums and is dubbed ‘King of Latin Pop’ by Billboard. His meteoric international career kicked off in the mid-1990s after recording a demo tape as a supposedly unknown Guatemalan singer, not wanting to trade on the family name to get any breaks or opportunities.

Adlib’s history with Enrique is slightly more recent, dating back to the 2014 Capital FM Summertime Ball at Wembley Stadium in June. Adlib supplied audio for the event, and the singer was amongst the star-studded line up.

Enrique’s sound worldwide is co-ordinated by Mike Sprague of Sound Image from California, who Adlib are proud to have a close and proactive working relationship with.

Perfect Fit
Adlib’s Alan Harrison had previously joined the team for selected dates on Enrique’s Summer European Festival Run looking after monitor engineer Eddie “El Brujo” Caipo Enrique’s production team aim for a ‘family’ vibe on tour, so when it came to extending this for the full blown headlining European tour … Adlib was the perfect fit. Andres Restrepo is the friendly & unflappable Production Manager.

Adlib’s crew consist of Marc Peers as crew boss and include Systems Engineer and L-Acoustics aficionado and KSE, Tony Szabo. Richard Cook also joined Tony working as PA tech.

The L-Acoustics K1 / KARA system was specified by Enrique’s FOH engineer Brad Divens and comprised of 14 x K1 speakers per side for the main arrays complete with 4 x KARA downs, each supported by an array of 6 x K1SB subs flown beside them.

L-Acoustics K2 was used for the side arrays, with 12 x K2s left-and-right, together with two hangs of 12 x KARA for upstage. Eight KARA were utilised for front fills, positioned around the bespoke curved stage, which was one of the main set elements, together with a 56 foot long, 8 foot wide thrust from centre stage, going through the audience to FOH.

Eighteen SB28 subs were also strategically placed around the stage front, run in cardioid mode and in an L-C-R arrangement.

One of the biggest daily challenges for the Adlib crew was the physical one of positioning the speaker arrays where they needed to be for optimum sound, and fitting them in between the production’s many video elements including a large curved upstage LED screen.

The system ran all-digital with AES out of the Avid Profile FOH console chosen by Brad and into the Lake LM44 control rack – one of Adlib’s standards. The FOH Avid Profile was running maximum DSP and 96 channels of stage rack.

The signal from the console was sent to stage via Dante protocol where it was zoned and distributed by Lake LM26s feeding AES signals into the L-Acoustic LA8 amplifiers.

The LA8s were all networked and run via their proprietary L2 software which was also accessible via the wireless tablet control for the Lake devices.

At FOH, Tony Szabo added his usual sonic magic and used a selection of regular tools including Meyer SIM3 combined with Earthworks and Josephson measurement mics and a Lectosonics RF unit.

At the stage end, Alan Harrison was joined by Chris Sharpe from Sound Image and together they looked after the monitor requirements and engineer Eddie Caipo.

Brad Divens (FOH engineer) stated – “My Avid Profile is loaded with Waves Mercury and SSL Bundles, Soundtoys Decapitator, Cranesong Phoenix and the SPL Transient Designer plug-ins.  With only 2 days of rehearsal before starting the tour I relied heavily on previously recorded multi-tracks via the Avid Native Thunderbolt connected to my Macbook Pro.  This in addition to virtual sound check allowed me to dial in snapshots for each song and tweak the mix to sonic perfection in a short amount of time.

The L-Acoustic’s K1 combined with Tony Szabo and the rest of the Adlib crew, gave me the consistency that I needed to give Enrique, the band and especially the audience, the very best show that I could deliver.”

RF Management
Their most galvanising task every day was planning 54 channels of RF for monitors, instruments and mics.

Alan explains that they have been helped massively in terms of administration by the serious advance work undertaken by Adlib’s RF Co-ordinator John Fitzsimmons and Theo Holloway, who completed advance frequency plots and obtained the licensing for the majority of the venues on the itinerary.

“This is an incredibly valuable resource,” he comments.

To check the local environment on arrival, they scanned the site using Shure’s WWB frequency scanning software combined with an analogue oscilloscope owned by Chris Sharpe, which was ideal for the quick real-time assessment of frequencies.

Eddie Caipo also uses a 96-channel Avid Profile console, and the entire 9-piece band and Enrique are all on IEMs … so with no speakers onstage it makes for an extremely neat and tidy set up.

Eddie “El Brujo” Caipo commented, “It’s a complicated, yet simple show and there are a lot of mix cues during Enrique’s performance and they are all easily accomplished via Scoped Snapshots on my Avid Profile. I am also using McDSP ML4000 Plug-ins on IEM’s mixes, and Waves SSL and C6 Plug-ins on inputs.

Enrique and the band are all on Ultimate Ears with a combination of UE7s and UE11s.

Needless to say, Adlib and Sound Image have been instrumental in the success on all audio matters for this world tour. Their knowledge and professionalism goes far and beyond.”

The total IEM mix count – wireless and hard-wired - is 20, with the drummer on a thumper seat.

Of the 16 x radio IEM systems, 14 are Shure PSM1000s and two (for Enrique) are Sennheiser 2000 series. A single wedge feed goes out to the C-stage (behind FOH) for audience participation moments when Enrique gets fans onstage.

There are also approximately 20 x Shure radio mic systems in action and four Sennheiser 5000 systems with additional transmitters for the guitars and a full range of ‘conventional’ wired mic inputs for drums, percussion, etc.,fed into the system via a standard Adlib line system and split to both consoles.

The radio systems were networked together using Shure’s WWB (Wireless Workbench) and Sennheiser’s WSM (Wireless Systems Manager).

Enrique and the band performed onstage and behind FOH at the back of the arena so the wireless coverage needed to be as good on the C-stage as it was on the main. Having a straightforward second complete system here was not an option as most of the band are actually still playing as they are moving, so they have to ensure the whole arena is covered with signal.

The musicians who sing did pick up a new set of wireless mics on the C-stage which were fed by a second set of antennas.

So there are two separate sets of radio mic antennae in ‘Monitor World’, one receiving signals from the main stage and a second set pointing at FOH – which can be separated from the first – and pick up the mics as they move out towards FOH and the C-Stage. A similar set-up is employed for the IEM radio feeds which also has two sets of antenna.

Phil Stoker adds “Adlib is proud to continue our relationship with Sound Image and it has been great to have the guidance on the front end from Mike Sprague.”