Depeche Mode embrace global spirit with SSL
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Front of House engineer Antony King is taking two Solid State Logic L500 Plus digital live consoles on the road with him, supplied by UK rental company Britannia Row Productions. "The SSL is the only serious choice out there," Says King, who auditioned several consoles before settling on the L500 for the tour. "With a company like SSL you're not taking risks. You want something that will work every day, sound good, and travel on the truck. So, SSL is the only choice, I think, at this point."
The band plays a mixture of material from both its 14th studio album, Spirit, and its legacy of 17 UK top ten albums and over 100m worldwide records sold. The set list also includes the Bowie track Heroes - reported to be the song that Dave Gahan was heard singing in a scout hut by founding member Vince Clarke, when he was asked to join the band. Original members Martin Gore, Dave Gahan, and Andy Fletcher are all in the show, along with touring members Christian Eigner (drums) and Peter Gordeno (Keyboards, bass, backing vocals).
The whole show uses nearly 100 inputs, with the biggest contribution to that being Eigner's drum kit, with about 30 channels all to itself. "There are a lot of drums," notes King. "Lots of toms, two kick drums, two snares, two hats, and cymbals everywhere."
Gordeno uses three keyboards, including a Moog for many of the distinctive Depeche Mode basslines. Fletcher has two keyboards, as does Gore, who also provides four outputs from his guitar rig, comprising parallel Rivera and Kemper amps. "That's quite nice," says King. "You can do some really crazy things in the Kemper and keep the Rivera as the solid guitar sound. Depending on the song you can go for more crazy, or more guitar."
For most shows, there are two SSL L500 consoles at front of house, running in Expander mode (effectively as a single 'stretched' console). This allows King to move around a greater range of faders, but importantly also means that his assistant can jump onto the second surface as needed - to manage broadcast feeds and so on. Those consoles are fed by SSL ML 32.32 Stageboxes via a redundant optical connection using SSL's Blacklight concentrated MADI technology. The Monitor console uses the analogue mic amp splits from the SSL Stageboxes.
King points out that for some, the SSL Live consoles may require a new approach - mainly because of its lack of limitations. "The thing with the SSL is that it's so modular you can do anything," he explains. "A lot of desks previously had a fixed number of channels and a fixed number of auxes, and so on. You had to work around that - finding interesting ways of doing things within those limitations.... This console can do anything you want... It never says no."
A two-part video interview with Antony King is now available on the SSL YouTube channel, and includes special insights into his own background and techniques, the challenges of the Depeche Mode show, live sound for drum kits, Dave Gahan's vocals, and more.
(Jim Evans)
