![\"Monitor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026-01-13-Blood-Orange-Residency-1.jpg\")
Monitor engineer Rafael Lazzaro (left) and FOH engineer Nahuel Gutierrez inside Brooklyn Steel. The in-the-round Blood Orange residency used its own P.A. centered around L-Acoustics L2D and A10 loudspeakers. Photo: Clive Young<\/p>\n\t\tMonitor engineer Rafael Lazzaro (left) and FOH engineer Nahuel Gutierrez inside Brooklyn Steel. The in-the-round Blood Orange residency used its own P.A. centered around L-Acoustics L2D and A10 loudspeakers. Photo: Clive Young<\/p>\n
Brooklyn, NY (January 13, 2026)\u2014Few artists fit the term \u201cmusical polymath\u201d quite like Devonte Hynes. Better known as Blood Orange, the multi-instrumentalist has spent the last 20 years working with everyone from Philip Glass to Britney Spears, composing film soundtracks, producing and co-writing with Kylie Minogue, Blondie, Carly Rae Jepsen, A$AP Rocky and The Charlatans, and doing features on tracks by acts as disparate as Turnstile and Mac Miller. Still, despite decades of old-fashioned hard work, Hynes\u2019 career exploded in 2024 for the most modern of reasons: His song, \u201cChampagne Coast,\u201d recorded back in 2011, suddenly went viral on TikTok and inadvertently primed the pump for his next album.<\/p>\n
Currently touring behind that record, Essex Honey, Hynes spent the fall opening for Lorde on her U.S. arena tour (the New Zealander guests on his new record), playing high-profile festivals like Tyler, The Creator\u2019s Camp Flog Gnaw, and headlining his own tour, complete with unique residencies at London\u2019s Alexandra Palace Theater and New York\u2019s Brooklyn Steel.<\/p>\n
Hynes\u2019 music is a broad m\u00e9lange of forceful pop beats, delay-drenched cello, Peter Hook-like bass, atmospheric keyboards and more\u2014 and squeezing it into Brooklyn Steel for six nights was no simple feat. Rather than use the 1,800-capacity venue\u2019s stage and house P.A., the shows were played in-the-round, with Hynes, two backing vocalists and two other musicians atop a small, circular deck at the center of the room. Accommodating this approach, the production brought in its own audio equipment, using its touring control packages, provided by Britannia Row and its parent company, Clair Global, and a P.A. provided by See Factor.<\/p>\n
![\"Multi-instrumentalist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/2026-01-13-Blood-Orange-Residency-2.jpg\")
Multi-instrumentalist Blood Orange, aka Devonte Hynes, tears into another electric cello solo. Photo: Katie Flores\/Billboard via Getty Images<\/p>\n
A square truss above the circular stage held four L-Acoustics L2D loudspeakers\u2014one in each corner\u2014with two facing most of the audience and the balcony, and two facing the venue\u2019s stage. Meanwhile, handling the sides were left-right hangs of A10 Wide and A10 Focus medium-throw loudspeakers; at ground level, subs were placed in cardioid clusters to keep low end off the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe L2Ds are spread just a little bit, so you don\u2019t get a massive beam in the mixing position when you put them [symmetrical],\u201d explained Nahuel Gutierrez, front-of-house engineer. \u201cWe opted for A10s because we needed the curvature and to be able to hit a little bit more, so we have a better stereo sound for the people on the sides. As a left-right experience, there\u2019s a lot of elements like hi-hats and little things that are panning in the programming, and it\u2019s quite important that you get a good stereo image out of it. The A10s have been doing a fantastic job.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the musicians playing only feet below the P.A.\u2014the two backing vocalists\u2019 position was close enough that they could tag a speaker with their hands if they wanted to\u2014miking and placement was crucial. Fortunately, most instruments were direct via Radial DIs, but there were still a variety of live mics onstage, such as Shure\u2019s new Nexadyne 8\/C handhelds used for all vocals. \u201cThey\u2019re quite good\u2014very directional, so you have to be right on them,\u201d said Gutierrez. \u201cThe most challenging thing is to get good level on the vocals, but it\u2019s been working remarkably well for the situation, which is less than ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n
The drumkit, surrounded by Plexiglas to minimize the inevitable spillage from such close quarters, was captured with a DPA 4055 on the kick drum, Beyerdynamic M 201 on the snare top and a Neumann KM 184 on the snare bottom, Beyerdynamic M 160 double ribbon on the hi-hats and a Shure Beta 98 on the tom.<\/p>\n