"These mixers are one of the best investments I've made in a long time. They've done quite a few miles on the road and I couldn't be more pleased with them," says Auger. "I don't need any DI boxes, I just plug the keyboards straight into the WZ and use the main outputs to feed the PA system."
Whether Auger is touring North America or Europe, the MixWizards are available to pre-mix his Hammond B3 organ and a Korg SG Pro X piano, as well as a rack-mount Korg X5DR module.
The consoles also allow the keyboard player to add reverb to his monitors as a performance aid. "In bigger halls, I use some reverb on the keyboards," he explains. "I'm using an old Lexicon LXP-1 reverb to give the keyboards a bit of a lift. However, that's not necessarily what the audience want to hear, so we just send them the straight signal from one of the buses."
Brian Auger and the Oblivion Express toured extensively throughout Europe earlier this year, playing venues such as the Blue Note in Milan and a four-night stint at Joe Zawinul's club in Vienna, and they have just completed a 10-day tour of America's West Coast, up to Vancouver. They will embark on their next European tour in November with dates in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, and possibly Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
(Jim Evans)
