Located in the Shibuya district, home to the city's leading music, cultural and arts venues, Shibuya-AX has a long tradition of being on the cutting edge of sound technology. As such, it attracts leading domestic and international artists and is well-known by Japanese PA companies, sound technicians and music industry personnel. Back in 2004 the sound crew at Shibuya-AX began to discuss a future upgrade to digital technology. Head of sound, Mr Tsutomu Hashimoto, drew up a list of criteria, which first and foremost included the traditional Midas sound quality, as well as Ethernet networking capability and analogue-friendly operation - the latter of which wasn't available on any other digital console. Having heard about Midas' planned entry into the digital arena, he waited until they could provide information on their planned system. Upon reading the specifications, he was certain that XL8 was the only route for Shibuya-AX to go down.
Once the decision had been made, a unique system was supplied to meet the specification requirements of Shibuya-AX. This resulted in a custom three-bay extender being supplied with a standard five-bay surface.
Ever since its installation in January 2007, engineers and operators who have worked on the XL8 have all commented on its sound quality. One of the reasons for this is due to the preamps on the DL431 input splitters, which give the XL8 that classic Midas sound, while the transition from analogue copper to Cat 5 cabling dramatically reduces noise degradation, again increasing the sound quality, says the company.
"I believe that this first installation of XL8 in Tokyo will encourage audio and music industry personnel to accept the digitisation of sound technology on this scale, not just in Japan but also in neighboring Asian countries," says EVI Audio Japan's Midas and Klark Teknik product manager Takayuki Ozaki. "As such, Shibuya-AX will be seen as a trend-setter in this area."
The new Midas XL8 at Shibuya-AX joins a Heritage 3000-56 monitor console, making this the first venue in the world to combine Midas digital and analogue technology in one state-of-the-art live sound system.
(Christine Henry)
