Ostrin reports that with the (largely arena) tour selling well, the band couldn't be happier. When this tour rider was being prepared late last year the thought of moving to a digital environment for the first time was the last thing on his mind. He says: "I had settled into an XL4 four years ago and in November I told a buddy I'd never go to a digital board - I'd retire first.
But Digidesign's Steve McCale ran into Ostrin in New York City and introduced him to the desk, and his interest was kindled by Venue's distinctly analogue feel and the fact there were 24 faders he could grab on the fly. "I had three weeks in LA to rehearse and I could see this would be a perfect scenario for gaining a feel for it. The band were already heavily into the Pro Tools thing in the studio anyway, so there was an immediate additive.
From my point of view Venue simply had the best sounding head-amp on the market, which was vitally important given the quality of Toto's live sound. With most consoles I end up losing something - but not this time."
By the time production turned on the V-Dosc PA for the first time in London after rehearsing for three days it sounded fantastic, says Ostrin. He has been taking full advantage of the Venue's suite of TDM effects processing plug-ins and tries out different EFX on a weekly basis. "The plug-ins are phenomenal - they give an engineer a whole new depth to mixing live - and the head amp is not only transparent, but extremely accurate. For example, I've been successful at reproducing Simon's drum kit in a way I only dreamed of in the past. Sonically and visually, it's as if I'm sitting in the studio with him, it doesn't sound like there are 19 individual mics being pieced together to create one drum sound. I give credit to the console for delivering a natural result, using the onboard gates, and Digi's EFX."
To process Bobby Kimball's vocal, Ostrin has turned to the Bomb Factory BF76 along with Cranesong Phoenix's various units and parameters, (depending on each vocalist's characteristics). He has also been using the Fairchild 660 compressor on Mike Porcaro's bass, and Focusrite ISA130 on Steve Lukather's guitar (EFX speakers) and Bomb Factory BF76 (DRY signal); the Focusrite ISA130, meanwhile, is being used on some of the keyboard and piano tracks.
He is also dipping into the EFX bank to process the vocals (with ReVibe), the drums (with DVerb), the snare (with Reverb One), vocal delay (with Echo Farm) and vocal harmonizer (with Digi Pitch).
Ostrin has also made generous use of the Sony Oxford emulations - notably the Oxford EQ and filters on the Left and Right PA, and Oxford Transient Modulator on piano. He has also delved into the Phoenix suite, designed to emulate different analogue tape characteristics. "I'm using the Luster unit with the Sapphire setting for recording to CDR - in line with the Focusrite ISA130 limiter - and I've never heard a board mix like it in my life."
At Steve McCale's suggestion the Venue's Personal Q outputs are being used to drive the PA rather than the board's matrix.
Ostrin has been downloading the shows on his laptop back at the hotel. "Recently I checked all my FX sends and went through all 60 snapshots - just getting getting round the gain structure and levelling everything out. I zeroed out some inputs and loaded it back into my console with the result that the next show was the best we had on the tour."
Next he plans to develop the recording options and beef up the horsepower. "I'm fantasising abou
