According to MIDAS ProSound's Paul Nicholson (who also heads up the distribution company Red Square Audio) the event was a complete success. "We've been handling the audio for the Fareham Folk Festival for the last 15 years and we've always achieved great sound," noted Nicholson, "but this year was truly exceptional. In addition to our usual festival regulars who are always kind enough to comment on the great sound, this year we had a stream of people coming to see us after each session to say how much better the sound was compared to previous years. This was clearly as a result of the Eclipse and VQ Live systems, and a little bit of skill from us!"
Nicholson mixed the majority of the bands himself, but he also played host to six guest engineers. "Each one of them took to the Eclipse immediately," he says. "We set up each band with their own patch and all the engineers had to do was push the faders and mix. Even the analogue diehards had a great time as the Eclipse is a very analogue-friendly console with no less than 96 faders and a clearly laid out control surface. The fidelity of the Innovason and Tannoy combination was the best they had ever heard. The promoter also loved the systems as they took up far less space than on previous years."
* The festival marked the first outing in the UK of APG's SMX15 stage monitors. Monitor engineer Andy Reeves says, "We had a total of eight SMX15s on stage, and I have to say they are fantastic - clear sounding and very stable right out of the packing case, with enough power handling to deal easily with even the most demanding bands. The software control is also great; being able to shape the sound exactly using the 8-way parametric EQ is fantastic, especially as it can be done in real time while the speakers are working."
(Jim Evans)
