Yumi Matsutoya, known as Yuming, has embarked on a 54-date in-the-round arena tour that centres around a pirate ship set, with audio powered by Japan’s first major touring deployment of Meyer Sound PANTHER large-format linear line array loudspeakers.
Audio systems for the tour are supplied by Arté (Acoustic Reinforcement Technology Co.) rental division of S.C. Alliance in partnership with Artwiz, Meyer Sound’s Dealer for Japan. The Meyer Sound system was designed by Arté audio designer and system engineer Shoji Yuzawa with assistance from Meyer Sound Director of System Optimisation Bob McCarthy.
The pirate ship motif pushed the array up high, but PANTHER had enough vertical to get the coverage we needed,” commented McCarthy. “And for the horizontal, we used the wider PANTHER-W™ for the floor seating and transitioned to the narrower PANTHER‑L to minimise overlap and maximise intelligibility in the upper bowl.”
The choice of PANTHER for the tour was satisfying for Artwiz CEO Keiji Shigeta as he had mixed Yuming’s concert sound on 14 tours between 1981 and 1993. “Japan has some of the world’s strictest regulations for touring systems regarding safety and electrical requirements,” noted Shigeta, “and the introduction of PANTHER has made it possible to offer greatly improved performance within these restrictions. The reduced size and weight met or exceeded all requirements for the tour, especially regarding sound quality.”
The touring system is anchored by eight hangs of 12-each PANTHER loudspeakers, with 16 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements contributing a solid bottom end. Fills are 16 LEOPARD compact line array loudspeakers along with four ULTRA-X40 compact loudspeakers, with system drive and optimisation from three Galileo GALAXY Network Platforms.
FOH engineer Norihiko Tango of Star-Tech, Inc., who has mixed Yuming’s concerts for the past 30 years, found that the PANTHER system faithfully reproduced his mixes. “It is my image,” he explained. “Of course, with in-the-round, I hear only one part of the sound, but with the system engineers led by Mr. Yuzawa, I am confident that any variances are quite small.”
“Yuming’s team asked me to join them for shows starting in 1987,” recalled McCarthy. “This was the birthing phase of FFT analysis when we were developing the earliest multi-channel versions of SIM. Her shows benefited from the most extensive tunings with an audience in place ever done at that time. Over the years, many of the techniques now common in system optimization were pioneered on her shows. It was very rewarding to meet up with old friends like Shigeta-san, Yuzawa-san and Tango-san to carry forward our work on the latest generation of Meyer Sound systems.”
During his tenure as FOH engineer, Shigeta mixed Yuming’s concerts on several generations of Meyer Sound systems, with main arrays built around MSL-3, MSL‑5, MSL-10, M3D, and MILO loudspeakers.
