MARLON ROUDETTE, HARD ROCK CALLING, LONDON Early slot at this great summer festival in London’s Hyde Park.
We were in the Stage Two tent for this one, and a very pleasant surprise on arrival was not only seeing the new Turbosound system, but a Midas H3000 on the front end. Bliss!
It’s well known that I love Turbosound right back to the Floodlight days, having toured its Aspect series with The Feeling on four production tours, so I knew this one would be a breeze!
14TH JULY
MARLON ROUDETTE, MOON AND STARS FESTIVAL, SWITZERLAND
I’d been looking forward to this show for some time – a weekend of headline shows set right in the middle of the beautiful Locarno town centre…
Marlon’s set is pop with undertones of reggae throughout; I have learnt to dub-delay on digital boards over the years and it’s a funny balance of sends on faders and old school feedback on auxiliaries – the usual stuff, but a different way of working, and not exactly a nice feel. On the Heritage, sod all that – just send the delay back on itself and compress it do death! Oh yeah! Nothing compares! Loved this show; was even allowed 102dBA at the desk! Get in!
21ST JULY
MARLON ROUDETTE, RADIO FESTIVAL, STUTTGART, GERMANY
God I love playing in Germany! The level of local production never fails to impress.
Sword enjoying Locarno The whole town gets involved at this event, which has run for many years now.
On the day it was a bit of a rush: early flights from London into Milan and a road transfer from hell getting out of Italy! Those guys just drive forward blinkered as to what happens around them. MAYHEM at the border saw us arrive two hours late.
So… we hit the ground running and raced through a soundcheck that I did front to back on a [Midas] XL4 in 20 minutes! Heart attack, head-exploding frenzy! The system was by Clair Brothers – HUGE line array with sub hangs directly behind the mid/top boxes.
During soundcheck, the sub knocked me over in the middle; a stupid amount of sub-to-top ratio had my GEQ ransacked of all creamy goodness. Soon had it in line though and the gig was possibly the best this year. We held that town to ransom; so powerful and dynamic. The reason? My opinion, an XL4 driven hard! No D-A conversions, no zeroes ’n’ ones being crunched, just hard pure audio paths.
This was a fashion show with artists playing in the evening. The lovely baggage people at Warsaw couldn’t be bothered to put all our equipment on the flight to Germany so we arrived without one vital piece, but the local production sorted it instantly – what amazing people!
So, a d&b line array and a BEAUTIFUL Vi6 for me today! I decided not to load my file as we had two line check slots and nearfield monitors to do them on. I know this desk like my own family, and it’s still my desk of choice every time. It always delivers for me – such a rich powerful sound from the Studer pres and it loves to have inputs driven hard. I love it when PA techs tap your shoulder to point out a kick drum is peaking or a bass, or even a vocal, occasionally. My response: “And?” It loves it!
It’s so nice to have fast layouts within a couple of finger taps on the screen. I don’t really consider this a digital desk anymore because its operation is more analogue than anything and I can see the whole mix all the time. Unsurprisingly, this was a great show! n
Visit us at Frankfurt Messe 21-24th March 2012
“Expanding audio horizons” Hall 8 Stand G94 Demos throughout the show in Room Dialog 9
JON SWORD’S MONTH Jon Sword is tour manager and FOH engineer for UK pop act The Feeling,
z
though this month he spent much of his time hopping across Europe with breakthrough artist, Marlon Roudette.