John Delf selects Soundcraft Vi7000 for latest 5SOS tour

Adlib has once again supplied FOH sound engineer John Delf with Soundcraft’s Vi technology to mix Australian rockers 5 Seconds of Summer’ recent 5 UK arena tour.

The company first supported their sound team of engineers John Delf (FOH) and Ben Booker (monitors) on the road during the 2015 arena tour, and this current collaboration started in January with Adlib delivering a control package including a Soundcraft Vi7000 at FOH and Digico SD10 monitor console and an RF package, which is travelling round the world with them.

Touring extensively in Asia, Australia and the Far East for the first few months of the year, they headed back to the UK and Europe with Adlib adding racks-and-stacks, including a bespoke 24U monitor ‘wardrobe’ unit specially built for Booker to ensure that monitor world was a clean, neat and efficient workspace that was quick and straightforward to set up.

Having also supplied an L-Acoustics K1 sound system, Adlib’s L-Acoustics’ expert Tony Szabo (KSE) took care of the arrangement. He was joined by PA tech Jay Petch plus Dan Ungaretti and Mark Johnson, who split monitor ‘baby-sitting’/support duties between them.

The PA was specified by John Delf, and in its largest format on this tour – for venues like London’s O2 and Manchester Arena – it comprised 14 x K1s a side with four Kara downs for the main hangs with 12-deep K2 side hangs. The subs were 18 x SB28s arranged in six stacks of three around the front of the stage, with ARCS2s and Karas for front fills. All these were powered by LA8 amplifiers and controlled/processed by an Adlib Lake system.

John ran a Realtime UAD processing rack in conjunction with the Vi7000 to integrate a series of their own plugs-ins. He runs virtual sound checks from a Mac mini server linked into the network via Dante.

The band are all on in-ear monitors with the only speaker onstage a lone drum sub, in this case one of Adlib’s own MP4 products. Ben runs both Sennheiser 5000 and 2000 series mics including eight channels of hand-helds combined with 2000 series IEMs, and has a total of 60 inputs into the SD10.

According to Szabo, the band are ”excellent to work with! Top blokes who are properly down-to-earth and interested in what’s going on around them creatively and technically.

“It’s also been rewarding for all those involved in 5SOS production to see a fast moving career grow and expand quickly but sensibly.”

Adlib director and account handler Phil Stoker stated: “K1 works perfectly for this band who are constantly evolving their live sound, with John Delf at FOH working flawlessly to deliver a fantastic mix above the enthusiastic screaming of the crowd. Thanks to Karen Ringland, Production North & Modest Management for all of their help over the years, it has been great to continue our relationship with 5SOS around the world.”

John Delf also recently shared his expertise with AMI in his opinion piece, ‘Should roadies engage in social media?’, which you can read here.

http://www.adlib.co.uk/