The set-up featured acts on two independent stages in a fairly narrow room. Skan's Steve Jones looked after the patch and Chris Amblin dealt with mics. By using the Digico D5 Live and Turbosound pairing, they kept the sound system very contained and discrete, whilst still achieving an even response in the room.
The second system consisted of a mixture of Turbosound speakers; flown TQs supported by 21" subs and TFM 450s for monitors controlled by XTA DP226 processing. Ant Carr operated the Digico D5 Live at front of house for Skan for two bands that had used studios developed by the company in the 1960s: Alan Price (former Animals vocalist); and 70s folk group Fairport Convention making an appearance earlier in the evening. Other highlights included a flamboyant 60s dance routine and a video documentary of Sound Technologies history.
"The D5 was perfect for this job for a few reasons," said Carr. "The control position was tiny and an analogue control system just wouldn't have fitted. There would have been too many inputs and the outboard requirement would have been huge. As it was, the D5 provided all the answers to the above issues and kept everybody involved happy and I didn't have to use any external outboard.
"We used the D5 console for both stages and ran from a central control position. This worked fine with both bands having their own channels, so nothing was shared. We used the onboard FX package, the graphic EQs and the insertable processing channels with snapshots controlling the flow of the show. Being corporate the client may want a certain 'state' instantly. Whether this was CD playback, an announcement mic or AV playback, I had the desk programmed to snap to the desired state at the touch of a button."
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
