After only six months of availability, Venue systems have been used all over the world by major tours such as Nine Inch Nails, Black Eyed Peas, The Cure, Placebo, John Hiatt, Donny Osmond, Joe Satriani, Alicia Keys, Sound Tribe Sector 9, the popular Japanese band Love Psychedelico, Umphrey's McGee, The Thrills, Nena, and many more. Venue systems have also been called into service by those bands and others at major festivals, such as Live8 in Paris, the Montreux Jazz Festival, The Gathering of the Vibes music festival (celebrating Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead), 10,000 Lakes Festival, and Lollapalooza.
"Sixteen days of the festival, working 24/7, is proof that the Digidesign Venue can handle everything: rock 'n' roll, symphony orchestra, samba," says Patrick Vogelsang, the Montreux Jazz Festival sound director who recommended Venue be used at the festival. "The main feature of Venue is its usability," says Vogelsang, summarising his experience. "We knew there wouldn't be a problem with the D-Show console, and the system's intuitive control surface meant that engineers could walk up to it and instantly generate the mix they wanted. In particular, they liked the functionality and how it's designed, with real switches and real encoders. They could find the reference just as they would on an analogue desk and work with or without the display."
Jack Kneply, FOH engineer for Travis Tritt, has recently entered into the world of digital consoles and claims not to have considered doing so before the Digidesign Venue system. "We're already 40 shows into the tour with Venue and it has been rock solid," says Knepley. "I've had it out in the mud, the blood and the beer and it has held up wonderfully. Lately, we've been doing a lot of outdoor shows with temperatures in the 100+ degree range with humidity to match and the console has performed flawlessly. It has never let me down or even wavered in these extreme conditions. A couple things that sold me on Venue are the amazing flexibility of all the digital features such as multiple plug-ins and endless routing options . . . all this while maintaining a very warm analogue type sound and very user friendly control surface."
"Initially I resisted moving to a digital mixing platform for the live events that I have been doing, for numerous reasons," says Robert Scovill, FOH engineer for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. "I couldn't seem to find one that had the right fit for me in terms of human interface, sound quality, flexibility, reliability, recording and I/O options, etc. No one console choice was available that filled those needs for me until Venue came along."
Scovill goes on to say, "I have been using one now for about six months on Tom Petty's tour, and it has reinvigorated my live sound mixing experience. I find new things to like about it every day, none the least of which is the incredible sound quality. I'm truly blown away by how great this thing sounds. For the first time in my ten years with Tom, we no longer do actual sound checks and I feel creatively empowered while mixing a live event."
(Lee Baldock)
