Ben has had success for some time touring on Bring Me the Horizon's (BMTH) shows with a portable Vista setup consisting of S1 & M1 wings, combined with a Macbook Air, but selected the Jands Vista L5 for this particular arena performance, which was the band's biggest show to date.
In addition to having plenty of computing power to deal with the demands of today's largest shows, the Vista L5's sleek design is dominated by a stunning 21 inch High Definition Wacom tablet that provides a crisp, detailed image of the same Vista v2 software that is used across the entire Vista console family.
"Having used an L5 on some previous Australian shows, I really got to experience how quickly and comfortably you can program with it," says Ben. "I chose it for Wembley because I knew the bigger screen and extra faders would be really useful when dealing with a show of this scale. Having the 21 inch screen meant I could fit my entire rig in a single layout and have absolutely everything I needed right in front of me.
"Furthermore, I also really like being able to lean into the Wacom tablet and use the stylus without accidently selecting things, or my arms starting to ache. I think it's a much better solution for controlling lights than sensitive touch screens or other alternatives."
In addition to this, Ben is impressed with Vista's simple approach to lighting control whilst still enabling programming of complex shows, commenting, "BMTH's music is very fast-paced most of the time, so I needed a way to make complex cuelists easier to programme and trigger in a live show environment - Vista's 'learn timing' feature was perfect for this."
For this show, Ben ran the L5 as his master console, with an M1 wing connected for additional hands on control. Ben's S1 and Macbook then provided a fully tracked backup system.
"All in all, the L5 is a really intuitive and enjoyable console to use," Ben concludes. "I think the community around Vista is fantastic: reading the forums and noting how many suggested features actually get added into the software - and a steady stream of interesting new features being released - is really cool."
Recent shows featuring lighting or media control by Vista include international concert tours by Queen + Adam Lambert, Kylie Minogue, Peter Gabriel, Dierks Bentley, Thompson Square, Fall Out Boy, Bloc Party, Deftones and Little Big Town.
(Jim Evans)
