Dutch Pop Orchestra Uses NEXO Alpha at Detroit Music Hall

Guido's Orchestra, from Holland, has taken the Netherlands by storm and now has the U.S. in its sights. With a recent two-week tour, the orchestra, led by violinist Guido Dieteren, features talented young musicians and an elaborate stage show. It has performed with Lionel Richie, Elvis Costello, Andrea Bocelli-- among others. Doug Fowler, of Fowler Audio Service of St. Louis, was recently hired by the orchestra to handle system engineering for the U.S. portion of the tour. In addition to Fowler, the audio team consisted of René Scholing, Production Factory (Arnhem, Netherlands) serving as production manager, Wilfrid Evenblij and Ron Peeters of Da Capo Orchestral Audio (Utrecht, Netherlands) mixing front of house and monitors, respectively. Tour support was provided by Logic Systems Sound and Lighting, Saint Louis.

For the 1,700-seat Detroit Music Hall, Fowler chose 24 NEXO Alpha M3/B1s as the main speaker system provided by Thunder Audio of Detroit. Using Logic System's Nexo PS8s for front and outfills on all the dates, the rig also consisted of four Nexo CD18 cardioid subs and Nexo 242 controllers.

"I knew a two-wide hang of Alpha M3/B1 would provide nominally 70 degrees of horizontal coverage, and we didn't need the wider coverage most line arrays would provide," says Fowler. "Both Wilfrid and I have used Alpha enough in the past to know what it can do, and that it would accurately reproduce the orchestra."

Fowler said that having a world-class company like Thunder Audio as the system provider for the Detroit date also made the Nexo decision easy. "The system did not disappoint," he adds. "It was great fun using a traditional system rather than a line array. I had almost (but not quite) forgotten how capable the better point and shoot systems are"