Pussycat Dolls in tour with Butterfly

72 Butterflies at the service of the world’s sexiest pop-dance quintet

Outline reports that the European tour by the Pussycat Dolls – Doll Domination tour – was amplified by Britannia Row Productions’ Butterfly Outlinearray.

The world’s sexiest pop-dance quintet – led by Nicole Scherzinger, the group’s singer-dancer leader as well as fiancée of McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton – has sold over seven million records and is constantly in the charts.

The phenomenal intense show (28 dates in just over a month) is based on a top-grade production; “house full” signs were up at all the gigs, in the most important arenas in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Montecarlo, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Austria, Serbia, Czech Republic and Slovakia. From the month of March the Doll Domination tour will continue in the United States and later in Asia and Australia.

On the occasion of the concert on February 12th 2009 at Zurich’s Hallenstadion, sound reinforcement consisted in 56 Outline Butterfly Hi-Packs (16+16 for the main front hangs, 10+10 for the sides and 2+2 for “front-fill”) backed up by 26 Subtech 218 (12 either side and 2 in the centre); two Outline DVS 15 multi-purpose enclosures (1x15”; 1x3”) were also used to ensure perfect coverage for the front rows of the audience. The entire rig was powered by Outline T9 power amps (2 x 4800W, a single rack unit and just twelve kilos each).

The technician in charge of the Butterfly system on behalf of Brit Row is system engineer Adam Smith.

The American FOH engineer is Bryan ‘Froggy’ Cross, who commented regarding the audio system manufactured by the Brescia company: “We found come locations - both large and small - that were acoustically ‘complicated’, in England and Germany in particular, but this PA (Outline Butterfly) is very adaptable, from the most impressive stadium down to small venues, enabling us to use 12, 8 clusters, or even stacked systems. This is something big PAs aren’t able to do. My favourite set-up consists in 16+16 Butterfly Hi-Pack enclosures for the front and 12+12 Hi-Packs for the sides, 26 Subtechs, divided into 12+12 at the side and two stage centre. In larger venues, I add 8 enclosures per side for delay purposes. What’s my opinion of the system? That it’s one of the best designs in recent years. For the Doll Domination Tour, after rejecting the idea of a big PA, we looked for a medium powered system with the best possible quality and versatility. I tried a lot, but wasn’t satisfied. To get a good sound, I often had to work a lot with the processors; even if I got good coverage, I had to cope with poor mid-low frequencies, due to a lack of air movement. Then we tried Outline, and I thought: ‘heck, I’m a fan of Italian cars – now I’m also a fan of their audio systems!’ What further impressed me was the bottom end – in other words the Subtechs. The majority of spectators don’t just want to see and hear the show - they want to ’feel’ it. In Pop-Dance music like this, the bottom end is really important: there are low frequencies that in almost all the songs go from 60-65 Hz to 40 Hz and are very well defined; with a lot of subs used together, this part usually sounds very 'slappy’. The Subtechs on the other hand are absolutely full-bodied, precise and powerful. After the first concert with this rig, my partner, the lighting engineer, come over to me and said: ‘What have you done to the bass frequencies? Even my eyes were shaking!!’. I often understand if the system works by just looking at the crowd from my mixing platform. If there’s a good impact and I see the punters bopping on the bleachers, I know the system works. Plus, on this tour and with the current economic situation, dimensions and weight are also important factors. We’ve got eleven artics and the more we manage to reduce space occupied and load weight (Butterfly manages to do this), the less we spend on truck rental and petrol”.