An established couple

grandMA2 full-size consoles are heading out on the road with Tim McGraw as the country superstar kicks off his “Two Lanes of Freedom” 2013 tour in support of his new namesake album. McGraw’s tour will play 30 cities across the USA. It follows his successful joint “Brothers of the Sun” tour with Kenny Chesney, last year’s highest-ranking country tour in Billboard’s list of the top treks of 2012.

For McGraw’s latest show Premiere Global, which has been a vendor for the artist for the last decade, supplied two grandMA2 full-size consoles.

Everything in the show, including the video content, is triggered by the grandMA2; a backup unit is also on hand. “We had a multi-user interface for two programmers,” says lighting designer Pat Brannon. “They could save to the same cue files at the same time, and that was great. The main feature is the video interface; I’m very fond of the DMX bridge that Control Freak provides. And it’s great to be able to write your own fixture profile.”

Brannon says he “loves the feel of the desk and using the MA NPU (Network Processing Unit). The speed and processing is unmatched by anything I’ve ever used.” He enjoys the new layout feature of the grandMA2 series, which he finds “very useful – it eliminates the old fashioned process of grouping. Now you can lay out in the exact formation that you have in the system. You can see what your fixtures are doing live by just looking on the screen.”

John Zajonc is production manager for the tour and Troy Eckerman was the programmer. Jeff Bertuch assisted on the video programming. Drew Finley is the content creator.

A.C.T Lighting is the exclusive distributor of MA Lighting in North America.

Used Equipment:

<link http: www.malighting.com en goto>2 x grandMA2 full-size
<link http: www.malighting.com en goto>MA NPU (Network Processing Unit)