ON THE ROAD: Kasabian Below: Vocalist Tom Meighan belted out the band’s hits; L-Acoustics kit adorned the stage to achieve a live recreation of Kasabian’s album; Chris Edwards, bassist for the indie rock group.
Ramsay didn’t use any plug-ins, but did
use some external outboard features with two Avalon VT 737 SPs for singer / guitarist Sergio Pizzorno and frontman Tom Meighan’s vocals. A TC M6000 was utilised for four engines of reverb and a TC 2990 was used for delays. Ramsay added: “And my lovely Radial Phazebank for aligning four individual channels!” The engineer also used the XL8’s virtual
soundcheck feature on a daily basis; with the PA often checking phase and timing on subs with the real kick drum walking the arena. Said Ramsay: “Then I use it a lot with headphones to fine-tune the snapshots for each song in the mix and the effects. This is particularly useful at the start, with little production time, to find out who is playing what and sit everything in the mix right with the effects.” There are up to 45 inputs off stage when
the show is in full swing with the string section [which was added to some UK dates] and then a further eight stereo effects returns, audience mics for the recording, iPod and CD returns, totaling around 64 inputs. “It’s a pretty basic set up with drums, bass, two guitars, keyboards, three vocals, four strings and a trumpet player,” Ramsay noted. To obtain a live recreation of Kasabian’s
records for their audience, Ramsay got to grips with the band’s albums, adding a few extras to the live sound, such as short slap delays, reverb
42 • TPi FEBRUARY 2012
and long on beat delays. Ramsay added: “The band mix themselves, they’re good musicians and have good tone on stage, using good microphones. I just amplify what comes from source.” The mics chosen by Ramsay and the band
were varied and included Shure’s Beta 91A, Beta 52, Beta 57A, SM57, SM81, SM98, Beta 58A and KSM 313, an AKG C414, a Royer Ribbon 122, an Audio Technica AE3000 and a Heil PR40. Ramsay concluded: “Every day is different - that’s what I love about my job - every day this band put on a great show and all the punters seem to leave very happy.” System Techs Adam ‘Treacle’ Smith, Ricky
Gallagher and Arthur Mazzer worked on the Britannia Row supplied L-Acoustics K1 line array with additional dv-DOSC under hangs as well as ARCS for the 270° hangs per side when the tour was produced at London’s 02 arena. The K Subs were flown next to the main hang with the L-Acoustics VDOSC for side hangs. On the floor, 27 L-Acoustics SB28 subs along the front of the stage with dv-DOSC front fills and ARCS for out fills. L- Acoustics LA8 amps powered the system. The system processing occurred through
Lake LM44 and LM26’s units to both tune the PA and set up the system time alignment, as it’s split into separate zones for each section of the PA with a total coverage of 20 different zones in the arena environment - some stereo, some mono - this set-up all ran off a wireless tablet
at FOH. The L-Acoustics’ Network Manager was introduced to control the LA8 amps from FOH for level trims, extra individual zone EQing and muting at the end of each show. Production Manager Smith said: “Paul
Ramsay was my first choice of FOH Engineer for the tour after the departure of Robbie McGrath. He’s taken the band to a new level with consistent delivery of a powerful but eminently listenable mix that showed off Brit Row’s L-Acoustics K1 system at it’s best. Paul is known for a very hands-on approach, but it was important to him that he had Adam Smith as a System Tech as he knows how to get the best out of the K1.”
SUCCESSFUL COMBINATION OF KIT Monitor Engineer, Mark ‘Yogi’ Novissimo, and Monitor Tech, Steve Donovan, struck once again with Midas, this time with the Pro6 desk chosen for use with a combination of wedges; d&b audiotechnik M2’s and Sennheiser G2 IEMs. EQ was generated internally with the use of the KT Rapide outboard unit for ease of operation. Said Donovan: “We run four wedge mixes along the front in pairs except a third wedge, which is added onto Tom’s [Meighan, Lead singer] vocal mix for coverage as he moves around a lot.” One wedge mix for drummer, Ian Matthews,
who also used a thumper and IEMs which ran via five separate mono lines to a mixer, which he then tweaks to his preference. Donovan
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