2025 was the 25^th anniversary of Nelly’s Country Grammar album and he spent the year touring, playing all the hits. Synergetic was selected as the audio provider for both the Canada run (3 weeks) and the US run (11 weeks).

When this opportunity came up, our CEO Jason Weldon was really excited about it. “Synergetic got its start back in 1997 with me being a DJ.  I use to set up speakers to play all the great songs off the Country Grammar album. And now, some 25 years later, we were going to get the opportunity to set up speakers for his tour. That was such a sublime moment for me when we were selected.” Jason said.

The PA system was an all D&B rig, with Digico and Avid as the console choice. Our system engineer James DeWit designed the rig. “My main focus designing this tour was trying to make the daily process as simple and repeatable as possible to get a consistent and repeatable result. We wanted to be able to give a consistent day to day experience to both the artist and the engineers and then make sure that experience was the same experience that everyone in the audience got to have.”

The rig consisted of the following:

• 18/side KSL, 14 KSL8 over 4 KSL12.
• 6-8/side flown J-Sub
• 12/side flown V-8
• 20 SL-Sub
• 16 M4
• 4 J8 over 2 J-Sub per side for artist sidefill
• 53 D80
• S6L 32D/SD10 at FOH and a Quantum 338 at Monitors

The drive system for this tour was fully digital front to back. The console drive was taken in AES3 through a console switcher (XTA MX36), where it was passed over a Dante network to the system processor (Lake LMX88), and down to each amp rack, where it was converted back to AES3 by D&B DS10 converters and distributed to the amplifiers. This network was fully redundant and backed up by a fully analog third stage of redundancy. Additionally, the drive system contained the measurement rig for the tour. Measurement was all done in Rational Acoustics Smaart, with 4 channels of wireless measurement mics (EMX7150 measurement mics, wireless with MiPro ACT848), and distributed through the measurement rig over Dante by a Yamaha DM3D.

This tour had a total of 53 D&B D80s – 42 for the front of house PA, 9 for the monitor rig, and 2 spares. These were divided up into two 18 amplifier sleds, plus a 6 amp side rack per side – these covered any PA that was flown, including monitors sidefills. These amp sleds have all drive, motor control, power, and signal distribution built into one rack that stays patched to simplify load in and load out, and minimize the amount of patching done every day. Similarly, the monitors amps were built into our control racks in monitor world.

What was James most happy about with this rig? –  “The way that my morning ArrayCalc is able to translate into predictable results every day, especially when adapting to unusual rooms. The rig was designed for what I’d call the “average” venue on the run, but I think 40% of the venues we played required some level of adjustment in box count, box placement, or subwoofer design. Being able to accommodate unusual days and still be able to come close to our normal result was something I was really happy with, especially without having to jump through many hoops amplifier or equipment layout wise. Also, can’t say enough about how easy our crew made this run.” James said.

John Phillips, the Production Manager from 900 Management , said “It was an amazing experience from front to back and your crew were killers. They killed it! There was always a party in monitor world.”

Synergetic offers a boutique tour experience for our customers. We don’t have 10 tours going on at once, so we can offer you more attention. We are particular with the crew we send, we don’t cut corners and we have all the right equipment – prepped the way you want it; that makes us desirable for discerning artists in the touring market.

Crew

Production Manager – John Phillips – 900 Management

Project Manager – Kyle Peters

SE – James DeWit (Canada / USA)

Monitor Tech – Luis Zuniga (USA)

FOH Tech/Fly Tech – Tony Incitti (Canada / USA)

Patch/RF Tech – Albert Garcia (USA)

Monitor Tech – Brian Delange (Canada)

Patch/RF Tech – Edward Stalzer (Canada)

Lighting and Video: Helm Projects

Trucking: Roadshow

Buses: Peak Touring