| March 2007 | |
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KYLIE COMES HOME WITH D5 LIVES |
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Kylie Minogue’s much anticipated Homecoming tour - the final leg of the interrupted Showgirl tour - arrived on British soil with DiGiCo D5 Live digital mixing consoles still very much at the hub of her audio system. Supplied by UK rental company Capital Sound Hire, the system featured D5 Lives at both the front of house and monitor positions, a Meyer Sound loudspeaker system comprising MILO, MICA and M’elodie cabinets, augmented with Martin Audio W8LS subs, driven by XTA DP226 processors. “The show is pretty much as it was,” explains Kylie’s front of house engineer Christopher Pyne. “While it was presented as a new show, because a lot of people in the UK had seen Showgirl, we want to keep the same formula as the original - to re-jig the whole thing in the time frame we had would have been out of the question. Having said that, about 50-60% is actually different.” Pyne has a total of 52 inputs to the front of house console, along with eight matrix outs, which then feed into the XTAs and split again for zoning the main system. System technician Al Woods controls all the EQ with the XTA units for the set up that was designed by previous system tech Tony Szabo. Because of the stage thrust, each section of the PA is EQd differently making it possible to tame the gain before feedback issues that could have occurred. “The XTAs are being used as line drivers,” says Pyne.” There’s also EQ and delay involved, so you time align the system with them. We keep this separate from the console simply to avoid us getting in each other’s way and Tony has a wireless tablet system to adjust the zones easily.” Pyne is now familiar with just about every aspect of the DiGiCo system and one in particular that he finds invaluable is the ability it gives him to record each and every performance, for which he uses a Pyramix recording system .“I wouldn’t do a show without one,” he says. “It’s such a great tool and allows you to refine a mix in your own time. Gary [Bradshaw], who is taking over from me so that I can go on to Il Divo before the end of the tour, went through the whole show, mixed it before he’s even started and already feels comfortable with what he was doing - and no one was with him. “It’s the best thing since sliced bread and the best thing ever as far as sound checking. For mix engineers like me it’s a godsend. It’s also a refining tool. We sometimes do six or seven shows in the same venue and over the period of time you refine the shows. Using this system, you can go through every song, fine-tune it and find the bits that react to the venue and get rid of them. There’s no way you could do that in a regular scenario.” In fact, this facilitated the release of an impromptu live album, recorded on the DiGiTracks during one of the Australian dates. “It wasn’t planned,” explains Pyne. “But Bono came to the show and sang Kids with Kylie. I was asked if we’d recorded it and of course we’d recorded the whole show. I emailed it to Trevor Horn’s studio as Sound Designer files and now it’s an album” Meanwhile, down at the monitor position, Rod Matheson is also making full use of his D5: “The musicians and backing singers now have a stereo mix from the D5 going into Aviom personal monitors,” he explains. Rod is using all 56 of the consoles inputs: four are mono, but the majority are stereo (“which uses up a lot of busses but that isn’t a problem for the D5,” he smiles), plus a total of 16 channels of Aviom running from the console. “Each person gets their derived stereo mix from me. Their core mix is in stereo and then they have control over various other aspects, plus clicks and tone,” says Rod. “90% of the time I’m concentrating on Kylie’s mix, which is the critical element. Doing it this way means I can make the band really comfortable and stable with minimal changes and I can concentrate on the boss! “There is also a complete talk around system. They all have microphones and can talk back through their in ears to each other, to me, to front of house, etc and that comes up on the Aviom as well as a mix buss, so they can turn that up and down as they please. “I’m using two sets of in ears for Kylie on one mix, but split – a main and a back up on two different frequencies, different antennae and a bit of a booster, so there’s a complete failsafe system. Other than the in ears, UPMs are dotted around on stage for the dancers. It’s just enough to blend with the PA and bring it on stage.” Back at front of house, Pyne sums up his thoughts on the benefits of the D5. “It’s still the best console on the market without a doubt. The simplicity of it: one touch of a button and you’ve got instant playback to all channels. There’s no fuss and with these types of productions there’s a huge amount of money involved, so you can’t afford to be standing around twiddling your thumbs while something decides to work. “It’s a problem solver, it’s a refinement device and album releasing device. Who would have thought you could do that?” Press Contacts: Sarah James at Gasoline Media |
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