Downfill Completes The Picture

Atlantic Audio recently supplied Complete Audio with the W8LMD downfill enclosure for use with their W8LM line array series. Complete Audio is one of the most popular rental companies in Germany and wasted no time in pressing the W8LMDs into service.

André Rauhut, general manager of the 15-year-old company, reports a number of successful recent tours using Martin Audio equipment. These include Placebo, who introduced their fifth studio album Meds in Berlin. Complete Audio supported this with 20 x W8LC hangs and four W8C’s handling the near field, 16 x WSX and eight WLX subs.

They also provided reinforcement for the Citadel Music Festival — the open-air highlight on the Spandau citadel — and a show by film music composer Goran Bregowicz and his wedding and funeral band as well as a Gregorian night using 24 x W8LM and eight WLX subs, with LE12JB monitors and W8C and WSX as the sidefill stacks.

Other recent shows using the Martin Audio line array have been Madness – the famous kings of British Ska and Rocksteady music — blues guitarists Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy, and Billy Idol featuring Steve Stevens on guitar. These were based on more W8LC/W8LM and WSX subs, with W8C/WLX providing near and sidefills.

Gilberto Gil / Sandra de Sá / Margareth Menezes appeared in a Brazlian gala at the house of world civilisations in Berlin to coincide with the FIFA World Cup. This saw a pair of the W8LMD downfills in use with a W8LC line array system and WSX subs.Finally, one of Martin Audio’s highest profile system users are The Strokes, and so naturally they turned to Complete Audio’s W8LC inventory when they toured Germany.

Four years ago The Strokes planned some club sessions in Germany prior to their European tour and now they were back at the Arena Berlin. The show was particularly impressive and Complete Audio made a huge technical contribution to the enthusiastic evening by providing 24 x W8LC’s with 16 x WSX subs, two W8LMD’s for nearfield, two stacks of W8C/WSX for infills and WSX drum infills. The band themselves heard their monitor mix through Martin Audio’s LE700C floor monitors.

It was the crowning glory in a hectic summer for the Berlin-based company.