| July 2007 | |
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DIGICO D5 LIVES PLAY CENTRAL ROLE AT FALKLAND'S 25TH COMMEMORATION |
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25 years ago, the British armed forces successfully defended the Falkland Islands against the invading forces of Argentina. On 17 th June 2007, this historic occasion was marked with a commemorative event in London’s Horse Guards Parade that saw veterans and Islanders reflect on their experiences of the human side of the conflict. With a 270 piece choir, 300 piece band from the RAF, Royal Marines and Army, at least eight fixed speech positions, the whole of Horse Guards to cover and no live rehearsal, the audio production for the Falklands 25 th anniversary required experience, nerves of steel and DiGiCo D5 Live digital mixing consoles as one of the key requirements from rental company Delta Sound. The system centred around two D5 Live FMXs, providing full redundancy. With stage boxes positioned fully 400 metres away from the consoles, a total of 800 metres of fibre was needed for the redundant loop, 80 inputs were utilised and outputs were up to capacity to cope with choir, band and speech requirements. 40 L-ACOUSTICS’ V-DOSC loudspeakers were positioned left and right of each of the LED screens supplied by Creative Technology that sat at one end of the parade ground; 144 dV-DOSC were sited around the perimeter whilst d&b C180s and Meyer Sound MM4s were used as infills for the Royal Box. Control was via XTA DP226s for the V- and dV-DOSC components, whilst the infrastructure around the parade ground was from 20 BSS Soundwebs, routed via a 2km fibre network from the D5s. No site access was available until after the Trooping of the Colour had finished the previous day, so the Delta team only had 17 hours to install this substantial PA system. “Our crew worked through the night, completing a total of 72 man days between Saturday afternoon and Sunday night,” explains Delta’s managing director Paul Keating. “As there was no rehearsal, and the two hour show was going out live on the BBC, we had recorded both the choir and the band to two 24 track IZ Radar hard disks and programmed the D5s as much as possible off site. “For the show, the choir went out from the pre recorded material, but the band was live, with each conductor having a click track to assist with timing. This was essential as the televised material was being mixed from two sites - Horse Guards Parade and the Falkland Islands - with a two second latency between the two. We provided the BBC with all splits and mixed feeds which they accessed via a fibre link.” Due to the complexity and live nature of the event, a safety channel was available on the hard disk so that if any mics should fail, the recording could be reverted to. “It’s essential to have full redundancy and the backup of pre recording for this type of event, even if you don’t have to use it,” adds Paul. “Everything went very smoothly on the day. As with all these things, the trick is to use the right tools for the job. The D5s were absolutely the right thing and worked perfectly.”
Press Contacts: Sarah James at Gasoline Media |
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