36 l December 2013
www.psneurope.com SOUNDBITES live EUROPE
Adlib, the Liverpool based rental specialist, supplied a lighting, sound and trucking package to pop-rock band Lawson’s recent UK tour. The tour included a homecoming show at the Liverpool Echo Arena, where the band welcomed Dr David Lawson, the surgeon who saved the life of lead singer Andy Brown. Adlib where chosen as supplier under the wing of James Sharpe, Andrew Thornton and John Pryer for 24/7 Productions Ltd.
www.adlib.co.uk
Allen & Heath reports that front of house engineer Giles Stocks has used the new GLD-112 digital desk at a variety of festivals and venues across the UK and Europe for acts including Pulled Apart By Horses, Zico Chain and Hawk Eyes. Stocks said, “It’s by far the best-sounding console in its price range, it’s a very dynamic board and the CPU is fantastically quick.”
www.allen-heath.com
Calrec Audio supplied an Artemis Beam console that handled surround-sound routing for a full-scale, live to air production of Mozart’s opera The Abduction From the Seraglio in two hangars at Salzburg Airport, for an event the host broadcaster called, “Austria’s most complex, prestigious and important audio event in 2013.” Calrec’s EMEA sales manager, Chas Rowden said, “It was exciting to be a part of this ambitious and one-of-a- kind production.”
www.calrec.com
The Student Union at the Royal Holloway University of London recently purchased a Soundcraft Vi1 desk in order to train more students in FOH audio mixing. The Student Union hosts around 10 different productions every week, including live music, conferences and trade shows. “After working with the Vi1 I knew instantly that the user interface was far more straightforward and more intuitive for the crew to learn,” said technical manager Karl Travers.
www.soundcraft.com
SSL goes Live as Gabriel heads Back to Front
Professing himself ready to hear ‘That Voice Again’, Peter Gabriel has been revisiting one of his most treasured albums, So, with the help of a very contemporary piece of kit – the SSL Live console. David Davies found out how three of the much-praised desks were incorporated into the PG workflow
AN UNEXPECTED foray into the live desk market from a broadcast and recording studio stalwart, Solid State Logic’s SSL Live was surely the console launch of 2013. Now, seven months on from its global introduction at Prolight + Sound, the desk is making its debut accompanying Peter Gabriel on the latest phase of his Back to Front tour. Anyone familiar with the
recent history of SSL will be unsurprised by the association with the Real World founder. Together with broadcast entrepreneur David Engelke, Gabriel underlined his well- known passion for technology by purchasing the company in June 2005. No fewer than three SSL
Lives are part of the audio spec for Back to Front, which finds Gabriel performing his classic 1986 album, So, in its entirety, along with other selected favourites and some new material. One desk is situated at FOH, where it is run by Ben Findlay; another is reserved for Gabriel’s in-ear and on-stage monitor mix, handled by long- time studio and live associate Richard ‘Dickie’ Chappell; and a third is on monitors for the rest of the band, operated by Damon ‘Dee’ Miller from tour audio supplier Britannia Row. For Brit Row, audio engineer Josh Lloyd recalls that discussions about using the new SSL desk started at the end of Gabriel’s last, orchestrally-
vocals, Jennie Abrahamson and Linnea Olsson. The whole Brit Row team,
says Lloyd, has been “really impressed” with the SSL desk, but in particular he singles out for praise “the entire approach to the surface. They have some very new ideas about how you approach mixing. They go for a touchscreen, which a lot of manufacturers do, but it’s very large and capacitive, so it’s highly accurate. It also allows you to pinch the EQ and drag it around; it’s really a very intuitive interface with which to mix.”
As SSL Live console product Dickie Chappell runs the monitor mix for Peter Gabriel alone
inclined New Blood tour. Subsequent to the desk’s enthusiastically-received launch in spring, it was a natural choice for the latest leg of Back to Front, which reunites Gabriel
with his mid-’80s band of Tony Levin (bass), David Rhodes (guitar), David Sancious (keyboards) and Manu Katché (drums), alongside two recent additions on background
manager Jason Kelly observes, “each engineer has a very different workflow. So at FOH, the Channel Control Tile containing the small touchscreen is utilised for dynamically changing EQ and adjusting FX send levels, particularly on Gabriel’s vocal mics.” The same channels and VCAs appear on several banks of faders for ease of access, while there are also multiple masters configured “for driving the main PA as well as feeds to press, the video department to control visual effects, and a feed used to create a 24-bit 96kHz stereo mix that is available to purchase after each show.” For Gabriel’s personal monitors, Chappell tends to mix mainly on VCAs and employs the Query function – which essentially allows the user “to ask a question of an input
For the latest live news
www.psneurope.com/live
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