The show is renowned for its visuals - created by Adam Smith and stored and played back via a Catalyst digital media server.
Digital media specialists Projected Image Digital (PID) spoke to the Chemical Bros 2008 tour show programmer Matthew Button about his media server of choice. He sought a lightweight, fully portable solution for visuals storage and playback. Both he and lighting tech Toby Dennis invested in Mac Book Pros to which they fitted the latest 32Gb Mtron 2.5 inch solid state hard drives and installed the latest version of Catalyst. The Mtron is turbo-charged to give super-quick video access time.
The visuals show was originally programmed on a Catalyst running on a Mac G5 desktop, and this was then transferred to the laptops for the four-month 2008 tour's hectic schedule which included 10 shows in 10 days in Australia alone. "It had to be something we could take on the plane with no fuss - you can get consoles and media servers anywhere along the way, but the video was 80% of the visual show and absolutely critical to us," said Button, adding that, apart from no excess baggage charges, this set up also had the added bonus of ensuring the show was secure and with them at all times.
(Jim Evans)
