David Guetta Kicks the Beat, Adamson E15s Deliver the Punch

David Guetta has sold over six million albums worldwide, so it is no surprise that he can fill an arena anywhere in the world. On March 8 he did just that, as he packed more than 60,000 excited fans into Estadio Azteca for the Mexican stop on his Nothing but the Beat world tour. There are already thousands of YouTube clips circulating from the night that shows the excitement and popularity of this mega-star of the electronic dance music world.

Audio Systems del Norte was tasked with the job of providing sound for the event with the system tuning done by SonoTribe Audio Consultants, and technical support provided by Showco Mexico, the local distributor for Adamson products. Showco manager, Mauricio Alva said: "This was the first time that David Guetta's crew had used the E15s on their tour. As soon as the levels had been set to their specification Es Siahi, front-of-house, was asking about the E15 system. He loved the way they sounded and wanted to know everything about them."

Oscar Gamas, CEO and system engineer for SonoTribe Audio Consultants said that the system was chosen because "with a world-class artist like David Guetta you don't want to leave anything to chance. Estadio Azteca is one of the biggest venues in the world and we needed the headroom that the E15s are capable of achieving to ensure that we get an accurate frequency response vs. SPL dispersement."

The Adamson system they used included 48 Energia E-15s, making up the main system and outfill. Eight Spektrix boxes were used for downfills, and 24 stacked T-21 subs, 32 Y10s, 12 stacked Y10 subs, and eight M15 stage monitors rounded out the rest of the system. The sound design for the event was done by Audio Systems del Norte and Showco. They used a combination of Adamson Shooter and Blueprint to verify even coverage. Processing and amplification was covered with the Lake LM series with Lab.gruppen amplifiers. The show was mixed on a Yamaha PM5D.

Gamas tuned the system using Smaart v7 and said that, "I didn't have to use many EQ filters to correct the system and the frequency response was even and smooth. The balance between the E15s and the T21s was fantastic and we had tons of headroom to find the accuracy we were looking for. The tonal balance of the low end of the line arrays was surprisingly accurate and apart from a little more gain for the delays we didn't have to change anything."

Gamas had first heard the buzz about the E15s from Cesar and Mauricio Vilar of Vilar Amplificacion Ltd. in Colombia, but it wasn't until he heard the system with his own ears that he knew why the E15s had been so highly touted. "I've used many large scale line arrays in my career. This is without question one of the best loudspeaker I've ever used. I'm very excited that we now have access to the E15s in Mexico because there is nothing else like them in the world. The E15 and T21 combination will now be a part of my rider on any large event I work on."