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Grammy Award-winning Contemporary Christian music artist Chris Tomlin—whose recently released 11th studio album, Never Lose Sight, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Christian Albums Chart—recently finished a multi-artist national tour known as Worship Night In America.
The tour hit nearly two dozen cities in April through May and featured a diverse array of music styles. Artists Big Daddy Weave, Phil Wickham and Zach Williams joined Tomlin performing everything from high-energy worship songs to intimate acoustic ballads, and as he has for several years now, Tomlin is relied on an L-Acoustics K1/Kara combination loudspeaker system.
The PA system, provided by Indianapolis-based Mid-America Sound, consisted of 28 K1 and 12 Kara enclosures split evenly between stereo hangs, with the Kara acting as downfill speakers. Thirty-six more Karas split 18 per side as the flown sidefills, while six more Kara boxes were placed in four strategic locations as front fills. Sixteen SB28 subwoofers arrayed in 4x4 cardioid configurations handled low end.
The main system was driven by 14 LA12X amplified controllers. It was the first time Tomlin had taken these out on the road, while 16 LA8 powered the Kara down, front and side fills, as well as the subwoofers. The tour also used four Digico SD Series consoles and two Dolby Lake processors, which were accessible through an insert point on the Digico SD10 console used by Tomlin's front-of-house mixer, Kyle McMahon.
McMahon, who began mixing FOH for Tomlin this year after having previously worked with the artist as his monitor engineer, says that the L-Acoustics K1/Kara combination has worked well for Tomlin's multi-artist tours for over five years.
“The K1 is a very linear speaker as far as its tone—it doesn't change from artist to artist or from high energy songs to quiet ballads,” McMahon explains. “When using other PA systems on these kinds of tours where we have multiple artists and a lot of dynamics changes from one song to the next, I used to find myself chasing the music trying to tune the system for each new emotional level after it happened. It was easy to get very aggressive with the mix when I didn't intend to. That doesn't happen with the K1—it sounds consistently even and great from song to song, all night long.”
Nick Turner, the system technician on Worship Night In America, says he noticed the volume levels going from 92 dB(A) to 102 dB(A) during the course of a single show. He notes another reason the K1/Kara combination worked so well for Tomlin now and in the past: in certain smaller venues on the tours, the spaces allow them to use the Kara boxes as the main PA system, with 12 to 18 Kara hanging per side. And he likes the fact that the entire system can be packed into three semi trucks, keeping the tour economically sound.
McMahon, who has been a fan of L-Acoustics since he first worked on a V-DOSC system a decade ago, says the K1 and Kara are easy to specify for a wide range of shows. “They just sound great on vocals, and they play well together in a system,” he says. “That's why we developed this configuration over the last few tours with Chris, in an attempt to keep things as consistent as possible from tour to tour, and show to show.”
Turner amplifies that, noting, “In contemporary Christian music, the vocals and lyrics are very important, and the K1 has a very smooth midrange sound that really helps bring clarity to the vocals and entire mix. The K1/Kara PA works so well for this kind of show; we couldn't imagine doing it without them.”
