LITITZ, PENNSYLVANIA -
In support of his fourth studio album Don’t Be Dumb, his first album (and subsequent tour) in seven years, A$AP Rocky traveled across the United States and Canada this summer performing to packed arenas. The latter ten North American shows, from Phoenix to Western Canada to the finale in New Jersey, just outside the A$AP Rocky’s Harlem hometown, were supported by an in-the-round Cohesion rig designed to provide the full venue coverage and visceral output required by the Grammy-nominated rapper.
“A$AP Rocky is really creative—you have to be on your A-game working with him since he has a ton of visions of stage designs and ideas for how the show needs to look and sound,” said FOH Engineer Zach Stansberry, who joined the tour in Texas and mixed the second half of the U.S. run.
“[A$AP Rocky] spends the majority of his show at the B-stage on the end of the thrust located near the center of the arena, right underneath the scoreboard. He wanted the auditory experience for the audience to come from that center focal point, hitting the audience ‘in the face,’” explained System Engineer and Crew Chief Andy Bongardt. “That started the discussion about modifying the standard end-stage deployment system into an in-the-round design. The mixing team and production decided on Cohesion for its impact in the sub-lows and its clarity in the vocal range. The CP218 II+’s high transient control and impact in the low end brings a lot of weight to the performance, while the clarity in the high end brings the vocal forward without needing to push a lot of volume. We knew Cohesion would be a great asset to this show and accomplish our artist’s vision.”
The PA was designed as four “quadrants,” each with two arrays of sixteen Cohesion CO12 and eight Cohesion CP218 II+ subwoofers in a flown cardioid configuration for a total of 128 CO12 and 32 CP218 II+ in the aerial system, as well as eight Cohesion CO10 used as a flown pit fill. For the ground system, 21 additional CP218 II+ subwoofers were deployed on horizontal cardioid carts surrounding the circular B-stage, each topped by two CO10 as fill to shift the sonic image down toward A$AP Rocky’s main performance area. The system was deployed at each show by a collaborative effort of road staff from Sound Image, Eighth Day Sound, and Clair Global.
“I walked each arena multiple times, and the coverage was insane—there was low end on top of the bleachers!” laughed Monitors Engineer Ishti Szilagyi, who joined the U.S. tour in Florida and mixed the final fifteen shows. “The subs were so powerful, they were literally shaking the stage. I’ve never had a situation like that. It was mesmerizing.”
“Andy time-aligned it so everything felt powerful from every seat in the house,” said Stansberry.
“Those CO10 pit fills became crucial to the show, especially since we were hanging the main arrays around the scoreboards. In some of these arenas, with ever-growing massive scoreboard setups, the roof structure where we can rig can get pushed out 40 or 50 feet from the center of the floor,” said Bongardt. “This makes even coverage a challenge on the floor area behind the main arrays; luckily, I had the CO10 pit fills as my ‘secret weapon.’”
Stansberry described his philosophy for mixing a 360° show: “This was a different approach to mixing than a typical left-right, which is a longer throw. I’m closer to the PA on the 360°. It sounded like everybody was in the near field. I didn’t have to push as much with Cohesion to get what I needed. I wasn’t even close to maxing out the headroom. That’s the great thing about Cohesion. It sounds big and powerful without hitting any gain reduction with the way I mix.”
The PA was further accentuated by Cohesion’s novel aerial amplifier racks and amplification technology, which preserved valuable real estate on the ground alongside the show’s other production elements. The full 360° Cohesion audio system managed to reduce the overall weight and truck space required for the touring PA while maintaining necessary arena coverage.
“We needed to trim the system high due to some of the visual elements of the show,” said Bongardt, referencing the three helicopter props used throughout the venue as part of A$AP Rocky’s high-energy performances. “Cohesion throws farther at higher impact, and we could do more with fewer physical enclosures. The new [amplification technology] is a noticeable advancement in sonic quality, and we’re able to get a very smooth high-frequency response, even at much higher SPL that doesn’t feel painful. It’s a 105–108 dB A-weighted, 128–130 C-weighted show, and we didn’t even touch the protection limiters of the system. The power requirement is also significantly less; we ran the entire show off a single 400A 3ø disconnect.”
Said Szilagyi: “With that number of speakers and that truck space? Good luck beating this system. It was insane to see, with the right preparation and people behind it, how fast the PA could go up and come down—really smooth sailing.”
Each night, the show started with A$AP Rocky in a mosh pit on the floor in front of FOH, after which he ascended into a helicopter set piece that lifted high above the floor for the second act. He then returned to the thrust for the third and concluding act.
“I tried to follow him on stage as much as I could, whether mixing sound effects or vocals—I was mixing a live show. I wasn’t just letting my snapshots fire,” said Stansberry. “I mixed every element so the audience could relate to what he relayed to them. You have to get the details relayed, no matter if it’s rap, R&B, anything else. I love that Cohesion is transparent. They put that engine in the car and let you drive it.”
Guest performers popped up across “Don’t Be Dumb,” from Flava Flav in Las Vegas to Danny Elfman and Tyler the Creator in Inglewood to Ice Spice and 50 Cent in Newark for the “perfect exclamation point, a home run of a hometown show,” per Stansberry.
On a few occasions, A$AP Rocky himself sat out front incognito to listen to the tour’s supporting acts and “loved how the deployment sounded and felt.”
“People in the entourage came up to me tell me the show sounded great. Everybody was saying it sounded great!” said Stansberry.
“I had people telling me, ‘Oh my God, what an insane amount of power,’” added Szilagyi. “I think the system is unbeatable on that power. It’s outstanding. We never had a complaint.”
“Cohesion was the first system I used as a system engineer many years ago, so I’m very familiar with it,” said Bongardt. “I worked through how to time such a massive rig and did my few tuning tracks to get us started, and then I handed it over to Zach. He played that first song and was super happy—everyone was. Zach and I walked the room from the pit to the nosebleeds, and it was covering absolutely everywhere. With a big smile, Zach told me, ‘I think this is the future of touring.’”
“Most artists and their stages are coming into the crowd these days, and they want equal coverage, so I think this 360° rig will be the industry standard,” Stansberry elaborated. “Left-right might become a relic. That’s how I view it.”
He concluded: “Anytime you have a PA like Cohesion and an SE like Andy who can tune and time it the way I like consistently each day, it makes the job so much easier. If you have an artist who wants to invest in the show…if I were the artist, I’d want the best.”
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