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Tag: Clair Global

  • Clair Global Expands Regional Presence in North America with Las Vegas Location

    Clair Global Expands Regional Presence in North America with Las Vegas Location

    Clair Global has expanded its North American footprint with a new location in central Las Vegas, Nevada, strengthening its ability to support large-scale technology integration and live event production projects. The new facility will serve as a hub for both its Integration and Events divisions, enabling faster client response times, better inventory management, and enhanced technical support for projects across performance venues, sports facilities, corporate spaces, and houses of worship.

    The Las Vegas expansion also reinforces support for high-profile residencies and productions at The Sphere, where Clair Global operates as a primary vendor. Led locally by General Manager Troy Staton, and supported by Sound Image President Jesse Adamson and ATK President Michael MacDonald, the new location marks a strategic move to better serve one of the most dynamic entertainment and technology markets in North America.

    Clair Global, a world leader in permanent technology integration and live event production services, has opened its first premises in central Las Vegas, Nevada.

    Clair Global’s Integration Division specializes in installed solutions for large- scale construction projects across performance venues, sports facilities, corporate headquarters, and houses of worship, while its Events Division provides robust and technically advanced road ready systems for live event deliveries including music concerts, sporting events and festivals.

    This move demonstrates the company’s dedication to seamless customer service across both divisions.

    The new locality welcomes Troy Staton as General Manager and will back ongoing Clair Global projects in the city, enhancing client relations and simultaneously catering to Clair Global brands as a bespoke prep, de-prep and maintenance center.

    Support for clients performing Las Vegas residencies will also be amplified, as will technical assistance to productions utilizing The Sphere, where Clair Global is a primary vendor.

    Jesse Adamson, President, Sound Image, has overseen the expansion alongside ATK President Michael MacDonald.

    “It’s an exciting time to establish our physical presence in Las Vegas, which is a fast-moving and extensive entertainment market” begins Jesse. “Initial operations will focus on client support and inventory management before we look forward to further growing our team with more exceptional and skilled people.”

    Michael adds: “Building on our rapid client response times and with Troy’s years of industry experience and local business knowledge, our entry into Las Vegas marks an inspiring next chapter for Clair Global.”

  • Engineers Choose DiGiCo Quantum852 for Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism Tour

    Engineers Choose DiGiCo Quantum852 for Dua Lipa’s Radical Optimism Tour

    Global pop superstar Dua Lipa kicked off her 80+ date Radical Optimism Tour in November 2024 in Asia. The tour visited Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the UK, including two shows at Wembley Stadium that saw over 160,000 tickets selling-out in a matter of minutes. The tour is currently making its way across North America and will conclude in December 2025 in South America. Between her wide-reaching appeal and epic touring schedule, a rock-solid console is essential. Front-of-house engineer Will Nicholson and monitor engineer Alex Cerutti are both utilizing DiGiCo Quantum852 desks, supplied by Britannia Row, a Clair Global brand.

    At front of house, Nicholson has four SD-Racks loaded with 32-bit cards, plus an Orange Box with Dante and HMA cards. He relies on the Fourier Audio transform.engine for his plugin needs, appreciating the latest integration with his console.

    “DiGiCo has always stood out for me because of the consoles’ functionality, robustness, and honest approach to sonics,” he says. “I’ve made use of the transform.suite to access some of my favorite plugins, including the UAD Distressor, 1176, and Shadow Hills Mastering Compressor. The transform.engine is very solid, and the automation makes it incredibly versatile. It’s now my only plugin engine, which has made time alignment so much quicker. Having access to a massive variety of plugins has been of real benefit to my mix and I can test and deploy techniques that were limited before.”

    For Cerutti, the large surface layout of the Quantum852 has allowed him to customize his view and keep his workflow as efficient as possible.

    “The Quantum852 is a huge step forward. I’ve been using DiGiCo consoles on and off since the D1 and D5 days and really appreciate not having to create socket files!” he explains. “I’ve used SD7s and SD8s, and keep coming back to DiGiCo consoles because I don’t have to change my setup or mix for the console. They are as configurable as I need them to be.”

    The Quantum852 is highly versatile and the engineers are both making use of the expanded touchscreen capabilities. For Cerutti, moving the layer select buttons to a touchscreen makes navigation of multiple channels much easier. He appreciates the improved access to channel meters and the added diagnostic visibility, too.

    For Nicholson, the spacious layout of the Quantum852 and increased options for scale and resolution of the metering has helped him refine his display. It is features like these, as well as the spacious layout, that also keep him coming back to DiGiCo.

    “I really like the big screens and loads of Macro options, and responsive faders mean the tactile experience is a bit more natural,” he expands. “Having multiple metering options is extremely valuable making lots of information available to me. The diagnostic meter on the bridge is a small but excellent tool. I really like Mustard processing and I’m also using the MSE expander on a handful of channels, which has been handy.  It’s a quality addition and, thanks to the V20 upgrades, Macros have got even more capable.”

    Communication between engineers is key, especially during the performance, and Cerutti has created a channel Macro that he is using as a talk button, allowing him to be more efficient with his rotary controls. For wider communication, the integration with their Riedel comms system has improved workflow and management of the whole comms system.

    Nicholson is using a similar system, enabling fast desk state changes that quickly flip between pre-show and show states for fail-safe communication. This also comes in handy for spare microphone channels, so EQ and processing can be quickly applied if a spare is required. When a large amount of information requires processing at speed, having a smooth and reliable workflow is invaluable. Snapshots and Macros are all part of making the console work for the engineers, and DiGiCo’s flexible FPGA-powered processing ensures it can always keep up. As the pair conclude, it is a system that is working well for them and delivering the best results for their artist.

    “There are two significant benefits to using two Quantum852,” Nicholson notes. “One is harmonic; we have a shared sonic space. Secondly, it’s a big help for problem solving. If you’re scratching your head trying to solve an issue, having that shared language and setup doubles your chances of success. I make extensive use of the group functionality on the Quantum852 for my mix setup. We have quite a few inputs, returns, and groups, and I really appreciate how I can quickly flip between banks to see the relevant input processing and associated routing.”

    “The amount of information I have to hand and the speed at which I can access it makes everything easier,” Cerutti concludes. “We both agree that the support is excellent, too. Whether you’re mixing a support band or a stadium artist, both Brit Row and DiGiCo are exemplary.”

  • Grace for the World Relies on Graceful DiGiCo Consoles to Deliver Global Message of Human Fraternity

    Grace for the World Relies on Graceful DiGiCo Consoles to Deliver Global Message of Human Fraternity

    On September 13, Rome’s Vatican City hosted Grace for the World, the first-ever music concert held in St. Peter’s Square, reportedly drawing more than a quarter of a million people to the venerable plaza. The event, which was accompanied by a spectacular drone show above the Sistine Chapel, concluded the “World Meeting on Human Fraternity 2025,” a two-day gathering that brought together people from around the globe to reflect on humanity in an age defined by social and environmental challenges, as well as rapid technological progress.

    Also streamed live on Disney+, Hulu, and ABC, a massive worldwide audience tuned in to witness uplifting musical messages delivered by a star-studded lineup, including co-directors Andrea Bocelli and Pharrell Williams, along with John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Jelly Roll, Karol G, and others. And making sure that all of the music performed at this historic event came through crystal clear was a pair of DiGiCo Quantum852 consoles, at front of house and monitors, provided by the Berlin, Germany office of Clair Global.

    “This was more than a concert, it was a true event, and the broadcast put it on a level with a world-class awards show,” observes Jeremy Peters, who works from Clair Global subsidiary Sound Image’s Escondido, California office, and who served as the production’s audio co-designer with audio supervisor Michael Abbott. “This was literally the equivalent of a Grammy broadcast, but in St. Peter’s Square, as if it was in Las Vegas! It was very much a team effort to pull this off in such a short amount of time, but it really came together incredibly well.”

    Peters, who mixed monitors for the artists performing for the show, as he has for years for Pharrell Williams on tours, says the project initially seemed fairly routine. “At first, I was just thinking, It’s a normal Pharrell show with some guests, and we’d put an audio package together with some extra mics and ears and then call it a day. But that wasn’t what this was at all,” he laughs.

    For that reason, Peters says he turned to the DiGiCo Quantum852, the desk he says that he and FOH engineer Kyle Hamilton have been using religiously since it was introduced. “I’ve used it with Doja Cat at Coachella, with Usher, and with Stevie Wonder, so it’s my go-to console when I have to go to work,” he says. He likes its analog feel, but also how it puts so much information at his fingertips. “For the monitor person on a show like this, that’s critical,” he says, noting that the monitor input count was nearly maxed out. And that was with the full range of what monitors can be: IEMs, d&b and L-Acoustics wedges, butt-kicker subs, and coverage for a 350-voice choir. “I had well over 90 auxes, hundreds and hundreds of channels, six SD-Racks, and an Orange Box interface for digital playback I/O. Kyle and I normally share racks, so we went through multiple Prodigy MX multiformat audio matrixes to get out of the stage racks, sending all those streams to the truck via MADI,” he explains.

    And while he’s a fan of the Quantum processing, especially Mustard, Peters says it was the console’s flexibility that made it work. “This show was by far more ins and outs than I have ever had to manage. Normally, on an event like this, you’d likely have two monitor engineers, two house engineers, a dialog mixer, and so on. But, here, it was one front of house guy and everything else was coming through me on stage. But there’s no other console I would want to work on to do this show. The flexibility of the Quantum852, the worksurface — there is nothing else like it.”

    Grace for the World’s FOH engineer, Kyle Hamilton, is also a fan of the Mustard processing, particularly its gate, compressor and EQ capabilities. But, like his colleague in monitor world, his first order of business was how to manage nearly 300 inputs for a wide variety of artists onstage. “I mean, between the 90-piece orchestra and the choir alone, they said the total input count would be close to 500,” he recalls. “I just know that there was an ocean of people on stage, plus the core band itself.”

    The Quantum852 offered him the processing he needed to manage all of the individually mic’ed instruments on stage, which particularly helped control the impact of the percussion instruments in the reverberant space. In fact, he says, it all came down to management. “The Quantum852 was on it, one hundred percent,” he says. “The multiple worksurface layers, the routing flexibility — it let us what we had to do to corral that massive infrastructure. The workflow let us do multiple things at the same time, because everybody needed something different — often at the same time! So that flexibility was huge. Any other desk just wouldn’t have been able to handle it.”

    One thing Hamilton didn’t need from the Quantum852’s onboard trove of processing was reverb. “We were in St. Peter’s Square, man,” he says, in awe of that sonic memory. “All of that stone and glass. We had reverb that you would pay thousands of dollars for in a recording studio. You could say it was heavenly.”

  • Gracie Abrams Hits the Road Solo with DiGiCo Quantum338 Duo

    Gracie Abrams Hits the Road Solo with DiGiCo Quantum338 Duo

    Gracie Abrams is a lot of things: Grammy Award-nominated, featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, and winner of the American Music Award for this year’s New Artist of the Year. But despite being the daughter of acclaimed filmmaker J.J. Abrams and television producer Katie McGrath, she’s no nepo baby. The talented 25-year-old singer-songwriter earned her signing with Interscope Records in 2019, and since then, her soulful voice and emotionally charged songwriting blending indie folk and pop has taken her a long way.

    Following high-profile opening slots on Olivia Rodrigo’s 2022 Sour Tour and Taylor Swift’s 2023/24 Eras Tour, Abrams has this year been out on her own headlining The Secret of Us Tour, which included a well-received Lollapalooza performance. And joining her on the road have been a pair of DiGiCo Quantum338 consoles, supplied by Clair Global and operated by engineers Dom Rizco at FOH and Juan Carlos Garcia-Spitz on monitors.

    Rizco started out with Abrams as both her front-of-house engineer and production manager, but the singer’s rapid success led him to focus solely on the mix. “With the scale of this tour, I figured, I’m just going to stick to the faders on this one,” he laughs.

    That still leaves him plenty to work on, though, with as many as 120 inputs at FOH, through his DiGiCo Quantum338 console with its Pulse software upgrade to 156 input channels and 72 aux/group busses. That control surface is paired with two full-sized SD-Racks on stage, plus another for the B and C stages, and MADI playback of tracks. “The combination of the Quantum’s flexibility and the Mustard processing is what lets me manage all of this,” he says. “A lot of the things that they’ve added – like the Mustard Source Expander, the Mustard EQs, and variety of compressors – it’s all so musical but also so manageable. We’re automating stuff like input-source changes, even routing different sockets on a song-by-song basis to channels. Because there are so many instruments on stage and everybody will just kind of pick up whatever they want to play, we have to make sure we can route them to the corresponding channels. The Quantum desk lets me make all of the moves completely reliably.”

    Abrams’ shows have a lot of dynamic range, with the crowd hushed for the ballads and full-throated for the rockers. To help manage that, Rizco is using Oeksound’s Soothe Live dynamic-resonance suppressor plugin through a Fourier Audio transform.engine, a Dante-connected server designed to run VST3-native software plugins in a live environment to bring premium studio software to live sound. “One of the big reasons I love DiGiCo is because they ‘play nice with others,’ and I use tools like the Fourier transform.engine up at front of house to run Soothe Live on vocals to help tame some of the harshness of the crowd bleed in the mic,” he explains.

    “The really big thing about DiGiCo is that it lets me do what I want the way I want, and that’s a big thing when a lot of other consoles won’t let you route audio a certain way and try and tell you that this is how your workflow should be,” he says. “DiGiCo just lets you do it however you need to do it, and that’s allowed me to try different things and finally come to a solution that works really well for any situation. I think that no matter what I’m mixing tomorrow, I would want to be on a DiGiCo Quantum.”

    For Juan Carlos Garcia-Spitz up in monitor world, the decision to use DiGiCo is an easy choice. “Anytime we start one of these projects, the other engineers and I get together and are like, ‘well, what do you want on this one?’ And one of DiGiCo’s strengths is handling multiple digital formats,” explains Abrams’ monitor engineer, who has also done road stints with Lizzie McAlpine, Iron & Wine, and others. “So being able to take in instruments without having to do an extra A/D conversion was pretty key for us; for instance, being able to do any kind of playback digitally via MADI. It’s such a strong suit of DiGiCo’s. There’s not really any other console that just has it as standard.”

    Garcia-Spitz, who’s become a fan of the Quantum’s Mustard and Spice Rack processing – “It allows me to do a proper vocal chain without needing an external effect in Waves,” he says – also cites the console’s unique management capabilities. “The monitor console is a hub for so many things on this tour,” he says. “There’s everything coming in off of the stage – four band members who each play three or four instruments – and then the rest of the crew integration with wireless comms and our directors. Any of the crew that are part of making the show happen, we’ll get them on a pack and it’ll go through me and the Q338, as well.”

    That’s especially important as the tour audiences, which began in theaters and have since grown to arenas, have gotten larger. “One of the big things about this show is that this crowd is very, very loud, so having crew on ears for comms was a really big key to just making sure that we’re all on the same page when we need to start,” he says. “As soon as the crowd sees her, they’re a physical force of nature in terms of sound – and it becomes part of the show’s sound. Even when we were opening up for Taylor, the Q338 desks were able to scale the show for us. DiGiCo has been there with us throughout all of that.”

    For all of its ability to manage a complex production, Garcia-Spitz says the Quantum338 also offers a level of user-friendliness that’s critical for a fast-paced, complex mission like his. “Because I have so many moving parts to manage, simplicity and consistency are key,” he explains. “I just want it to work, and to work fast, so I can make sure that everything is ready to go when I need it. So being able to do something like a full-blown vocal chain completely within the console, being able to route a three-band compressor into a de-esser into a dynamic EQ, and then being able to have a nice little optical compressor all as a chain set up within the channel makes my life so much easier – without having to add an external processor, and all with zero latency. The Quantum338 really does it all.”

  • Nearly 20 Years Later, My Chemical Romance’s Black Parade Carries On With L-Acoustics

    Nearly 20 Years Later, My Chemical Romance’s Black Parade Carries On With L-Acoustics

    When My Chemical Romance released The Black Parade in October of 2006, the album shot to Billboard’s number two slot in its very first week, further cementing the band as darlings of the emo genre. Four months later, the group embarked on a 36-date North American tour, with support acts Rise Against and Muse, carrying an L-Acoustics V-DOSC/dV-DOSC loudspeaker system for its sound reinforcement.

    Over the years since then, the popularity of that influential record has remained strong, prompting MCR to revisit those songs on the road with its current Long Live the Black Parade tour, which will wrap its North American leg in mid-September before heading to South America, Mexico, Asia, and the UK in 2026. This time around, the band is carrying a much larger and more powerful system – a massive L-Acoustics K Series rig provided by Eighth Day Sound, a Clair Global brand – that can be configured and scaled for deployment at any of the major indoor and outdoor sports stadiums, arenas, and ballparks on the global itinerary.

    “This is a loud rock show,” reports System Engineer Andy Fitton who, in just the past year or so, has worked on L-Acoustics tours with Madonna – including the 2024 Rio de Janeiro show where she played to 1.6 million people – and Vampire Weekend. “It runs 101 to 102 dB, and the mains are throwing 120 meters, or 400 feet, maintaining consistent tonal balance from front to back where we transition sonically between the main and delay hangs. To my mind, that is quite impressive.”

    L-Acoustics Earns a Repeat Performance
    MCR FOH Engineer Jay Rigby says he directly credits his decision to use L-Acoustics to Fitton. “When I took over mixing Vampire Weekend a couple of years ago, I fell into working with their System Engineer, Andy, and the K1 PA they had out. I was initially skeptical, but after the first show, it was hands-down the best PA I had ever been on. What Andy is able to do with both Soundvision and K1 is incredible.”

    “On top of that, as this is a reincarnation of My Chemical Romance’s original Black Parade tour, which carried V-DOSC, I thought it would be nice to pay tribute, and keep it ‘French,’” he adds. “We have consistent results where Andy is doing all of the tuning and timing while I am on the flight to the next gig, and when I show up, I turn it on and we are show-ready. It’s been fantastic.”

    K Series Delivers the Firepower
    To accommodate the different venue configurations on the tour, Fitton’s system design includes two main hangs of six K1-SB subs over 14 K1 over four K2 cabinets each. “That’s the largest hang of K1 that you can deploy,” he says. Behind each of those line arrays there are hangs of 16 KS28 subs, configured in a three-to-one ratio cardioid array. Side hangs comprise 16 K1 over six K2, and, for venues where upper bowl seating coverage is necessary, the tour is carrying two additional upstage hangs each of 10 K2. Where delays are required, three to four sets of 12 K2 are available, while on the stage, one A15 Wide and two KS28 subs per side provide side-fill for the band. Up to 108 LA12X amplified controllers are used for the largest shows.”

    “On the ground, we have 12 carts of three KS28 subs with a two-to-one cardioid ratio,” he continues. “We have an A15 Focus for front-fill stacked on top of each one of those carts. That gets wrapped and strapped together on custom carts and rolls in and out like that. Our PA crew has those carts ready to roll to the truck before I have my FOH drive rack turned off when we’re loading out. It’s crazy just how fast this PA system moves in and out.”

    The tour has maxed out the line length of the main hangs to accommodate Rigby’s sound design, Fitton says. “His mix is all about the low-mid. Obviously, you end up with a lot of sub with an array that size, but for him, getting the low-mid to sit in the mix, especially with this band, is absolutely crucial. If you listen to ‘Welcome to the Black Parade,’ there’s a tom fill right before the chorus that’s my favorite part of the whole song. So just making sure that people can feel that impact, even if they’re 600 feet away from the stage, is why we went for that line length.”

    The transition from the main K1 arrays to the K2 delays is completely seamless, Fitton says. “Panflex is an absolute godsend when working with delays. Being able to manipulate transition zones using Soundvision’s coverage and delay modes is a real game changer. It’s like having thousands of virtual measurement mics.”

    “Our load-ins and load-outs have been flawless. It’s so easy to hang the K1, even with such large box counts. Our PA crew is led by crew chief Tristan Johnson, and PA techs Colin Dodds, Katy Ruggiero, Chris DiLeo, and Albert Lim do an excellent job putting the system up. I don’t think there has been a single incorrect angle the entire tour,” adds Fitton.

    Soundvision is the Secret to Success
    Fitton’s secret, he reveals, is L-Acoustics’ latest release of the company’s 3D modeling and prediction software, Soundvision 2025.1. “L-Acoustics has updated the calculation engine so you can look at how your mains and subs interact, how the low end propagates throughout the entire venue, and you can also look at more complex interactions between sources. Unlocking that feature in Soundvision is huge for me. I’m making full use of those new additions to Soundvision, like being able to see the frequency response at FOH, what people in those tough-to-reach spots are hearing, or the transitions between multiple arrays. We also use L-Acoustics’ P1/M1 platform to tune the system. It makes it so easy to collect a large quantity of data very quickly, and it’s a great tool for verifying the validity of the system deployment.”

    Further, he says, “The import feature from Vectorworks [3D CAD software] into Soundvision allows me to have all of the scenic elements of the show drawn in. When I’m working with scenic designers, creative designers, or production managers, it’s so easy to visualize where things go, now that you can draw those detailed elements into Soundvision. Exporting my design to the new Soundvision Connect platform is a great way to share ideas with other stakeholders. And it just looks cool!”

    For all the incredible theatrics on stage, sound still takes precedence, he reports. “Tour Director Jon Dunleavy and Production Manager Andrew ‘Juice’ Werlick are both bona fide FOH engineers; Juice earned his Qualified V-DOSC Technician (QVT) certification in 2004. It’s because of them that we’re able to have such a great sound system.”

    “A huge amount of gratitude and appreciation also goes to Meegan Holmes, our longtime Eighth Day Sound account rep and maker of all things better,” Rigby adds. “Without her, this tour never would have been as successful as it is!”

    A Solid Foundation of Education
    All that said, “The boxes are the boxes, and we could talk about them all day,” Fitton comments. “But something that’s really worth mentioning, that gets to the core of my workflow, is the L-Acoustics education platform.” Fitton was doing grunt work in the warehouse when he first saw the K2 roll through. “It was love at first sight. I was like, ‘Man, I need to learn about this.’ I’ve gone through the entire L-Acoustics training program, from the in-person trainings to the online courses. I’ve seen every single online webinar. I’ve read every research paper that the company has published, which is really the secret sauce, because all of the underlying math and physics and research and development is there for you to read, for free. All you need to do is go look it up under the Education page on the L-Acoustics website.”

    There has also been lots of in-person application support, he continues. “Application engineers like Chris ‘Sully’ Sullivan have really helped me out. Learning all this stuff from them has helped me unlock a level of system deployment with L-Acoustics products that has taken me from the basics of the industry all the way to these big stadium deployments, and all of their tools have been incredible to work with on each step of that journey.”

  • LD Systems Expands in Texas with New Dallas Facility and Strengthened Regional Resources

    LD Systems Expands in Texas with New Dallas Facility and Strengthened Regional Resources

    LD Systems is expanding its presence in Texas with a new Dallas facility and enhanced regional resources, thanks to its recent acquisition by Clair Global. As part of this growth, LD Systems has acquired the equipment inventory from Onstage Systems, a well-known name in the Dallas-Fort Worth live event industry, ensuring continuity for former clients and employees. Tyler Johnston, a seasoned industry expert and former Onstage Systems leader, will head the new Dallas branch, further strengthening LD Systems’ local impact while connecting it to Clair Global’s international network.

    In addition, LD Systems has expanded its rigging services by integrating Phoenix Rigging’s equipment inventory into its Houston location. With five locations now across Texas, Clair Global is deepening its investment in the region, reinforcing its commitment to top-tier event production. Clients can expect cutting-edge AV solutions, live event technology, professional sound systems, lighting, video production, and event rigging—all backed by LD Systems’ expertise and Clair Global’s extensive resources.

    In January, LD Systems was acquired by Clair Global, marking a new chapter for the business. Now, with the support of its parent company, LD Systems is expanding its capabilities and presence in Texas, furthering the Clair Global Group’s commitment to “think global and build local.” This initiative strengthens LD Systems’ ability to serve the region with enhanced production support and resources.

    As part of this expansion, Clair Global and LD Systems have obtained the sound, lighting, video, rigging, and backline equipment inventory from Onstage Systems, a longtime leader in production services in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

    “Onstage Systems has been a proud part of the DFW live event community for decades,” said Hyacinth Belcher, co-owner of Onstage Systems. “My father started this company in the 1970s, and my brother Chris and I have had the honor of running it for many years. As we close this chapter, we are grateful that LD Systems is stepping in to fill the void Onstage is leaving behind. We take comfort in knowing that many of our former employees and clients will have new opportunities with LD Systems.”

    To support its growing presence in the region, LD Systems has opened a new facility in Dallas, TX, led by Tyler Johnston, a seasoned leader in the DFW live event industry and former Onstage Systems employee. “I’m excited to join LD in expanding their network across Texas with our new Dallas branch,” says Johnston. “Connecting this regional group to Clair Global’s international network really opens our potential.”

    LD Systems Dallas is also working closely with Clair Global Integration’s existing Dallas office, reinforcing collaboration and resource-sharing.

    Additionally, LD Systems has integrated the rigging equipment inventory from Phoenix Rigging, a longtime production support provider based in Baton Rouge, LA. This rigging inventory is now based in LD Systems’ Houston location, allowing for expanded rigging services throughout the region. Phoenix Rigging will continue to provide rigging personnel, maintaining its commitment to the industry.

    With these developments, Clair Global now has five locations across Texas, further solidifying its investment in the local market. Clients can expect the same exceptional service they have relied on from Onstage Systems in the past, now provided by the expertise, resources, and reach of LD Systems and Clair Global.

  • World Outreach Church Becomes First House of Worship to Install L-Acoustics K3i

    World Outreach Church Becomes First House of Worship to Install L-Acoustics K3i

    MURFREESBORO, Tenn. – Since its very first service on Easter Sunday in 1980, Murfreesboro’s World Outreach Church (WOC) has steadily grown into the full scope of its name. Not only does the Christian house of worship welcome nearly 7,000 regional visitors to its central Tennessee campus for three services each week, but it also averages another 5,000 attending around the globe via live streaming. To ensure that both the message and music delivered in the church’s 2,800-seat Three Crosses Sanctuary are heard with maximum clarity, WOC turned to Clair Global Integration to install the world’s first L-Acoustics K3i loudspeaker system in a house of worship.

    Although the church’s current worship space is only ten years old, the sanctuary’s original sound system was never quite ideal. “The room had some troublesome reflections and their point-source boxes just couldn’t provide the coverage they needed while avoiding putting energy where they didn’t want it,” says Clair Global Systems Designer Joe Anderson. “There wasn’t a cohesive experience across the listening field, which is why we wanted to suggest a line array solution with adjustable horizontal coverage, as it would give us better control and eliminate the need for delay speakers for the upper seating areas.”

    After exploring various loudspeaker manufacturers’ design software platforms—including Soundvision—Anderson says that he and Clair Global Regional VP Dan Heins concluded that L-Acoustics would be the right choice for the project. “Soundvision is one of the best prediction software solutions I’ve used,” he says. “It’s easy to use but still allows for very granular detail. Soundvision was also a very helpful sales tool as we were able to sit with the client and show them exactly what different options would accomplish in their space.”

    World Outreach Church’s new system now features three arrays, each comprising eight K3i, all powered by six LA12X amplified controllers

    Anderson initially considered A15i and Kara IIi based loudspeaker designs but ultimately specified L-Acoustics’ newest enclosure for the project: “K3i was truly the perfect enclosure for World Outreach. It has the physical footprint of a typical double 10-inch line array but gives us the punch and performance of a double 12-inch, which is really what their worship space required. K3i is also super versatile; it had the tonality needed to reproduce classical and orchestral music, but also enough impact to make the audience feel those high-energy contemporary worship moments.”

    Installed in June, WOC’s new system now features three arrays, each comprising eight K3i, all powered by six LA12X amplified controllers. Two stacks of four KS21i subs in a cardioid configuration reside on stage, with two more centered under the stage, while six compact X4i, discreetly mounted into the stage steps, serve as frontfills. The subs and X4i are all powered by three LA4X.

    According to World Outreach Church Production Manager Nic Smith, the triple array arrangement is intentionally not set up as a traditional LCR design. “Based on a recommendation from L-Acoustics House of Worship Application Manager Josh Maichele, we’re running the three-hang K3i system in a Left-Right-Left configuration rather than a Left-Center-Right,” he describes. “Because our room is so wide, this actually helps us give a stereo image to the entire room and allows us to utilize panning without losing a vocal or instrument to one side or the other. It is a simple thing but makes a big difference.”

    Audio Engineer Blake Carman says, “Our new L-Acoustics system has given us so much more clarity and intelligibility.”

    Also making a “big difference” is the full-range performance of the new arrays. “K3i’s low end is very impressive!” Smith marvels. “After Josh time-aligned and tuned everything, he first unmuted just the main hangs and I was so surprised that I had to ask for confirmation that the subs were actually off. He then brought in the KS21, and you could really feel the ultra-low end.”

    Anderson is quick to point out that the deep low-end reach of the system comes at no compromise to the rest of the frequency range’s fidelity. “The system provides great speech intelligibility across the entire seating area,” he says. “And because the system is so smooth, the audio team can run it at pretty much whatever volume they like without harshness or fatigue. Previously, the church had to do some processing on the Pastor’s mic to get the gain-before-feedback needed. After we were done tuning the new system, we had Pastor Allen Jackson stand on the stage and talk, and with absolutely no console processing, it still sounded great. They now just use a bit of light EQ and compression for him, and that’s it.”

    In addition to providing the right sonics and coverage, K3i fits the bill—both figuratively and literally. “L-Acoustics is certainly a premium product, but the K3i system is priced very competitively,” says Anderson. “Plus, the way we were able to configure the system greatly reduced our install time and labor costs. We were able to use all of the existing steel to hang from, and much of the wiring could stay as well. This all resulted in a reduced cost for the client.”

    Although a number of touring sound companies have adopted the L-Acoustics K3 enclosure since its debut in October 2020, WOC marks the first official installation of the new fixed-install K3i version, sans K3’s touring-specific rigging. “We were happy to be the first integrator to install the new K3i but more excited that it was clearly the right tool for the World Outreach and gave them exactly what they needed,” Anderson notes. “L-Acoustics has always been great to work with, and with as tight a timeframe as we had on this project, they really came through with getting us these new boxes in time. Having done other L-Acoustics installs in the past, we knew the sound quality was going to be great, and K3i didn’t disappoint.”

    WOC Assistant Technical Coordinator and Audio Engineer Blake Carman wholeheartedly agrees: “Our new L-Acoustics system has given us so much more clarity and intelligibility. Every word that is spoken or sung, every instrument, and every other detail is reproduced so well by the new K3i arrays. The design and implementation of this system exceeded our expectations and continues to impress me more every week that I mix on it.”

    And the church’s AVL team members aren’t the only ones that have noticed. “It feels like we’re getting comments after nearly every service about how great everything sounds,” adds Smith. “Staff members have told me that they hear details they’ve never heard before, and several longtime attenders who always sit on the far edge of the sanctuary have commented on how they can hear everything much better, especially the Pastor’s sermons. Partnering with Clair and L-Acoustics on this project has been a great experience, and we’re loving the warmth and intimacy we’re now hearing with K3i.”

    For more information on World Outreach Church, visit www.wochurch.org. Clair Global Integration can be found online at www.clairglobal.com/integration.