Bell's distinctive voice has graced numerous top-ten hits with Erasure, but according to Hildred, it can be a bit of a handful live. "Andy's voice has real dynamics to it, but it is so vital to the Erasure sound I needed to keep it manageable in the mix without losing any presence." Hildred specified four channels of XTA's SiDD DP324 (Seriously Intelligent Digital Dynamics) processing, the two SiDD units providing threshold-sensitive high pass filtering to eliminate popping at low vocal levels, parametric equalization, and frequency-sensitive compression for controlling HF on acoustic guitar. "Vince runs his multitrack Mac set-up live every night and sends me the backing tracks. I use the SiDD's Dynamic EQ for control on Andy's voice, our two backing vocals, plus Vince's acoustic guitar, which appears here and there through the show."
"I use SiDDs above any other piece of equipment for their sonic quality and programming capability," says Hildred. "I store my settings on a PC card or on my laptop to make recall and adjustments fast and simple, and the classic XTA audio purity means I don't lose any sound quality in the analogue-to-digital conversion process."
Martin is now currently working with the Audiobullys who are performing various festivals including Glastonbury and Fuji Rock in Japan.
(Lee Baldock)
