Sound designer Gareth Owen, and FOH engineer HannahReymes-Cole (pictured above), have now selected the Venue foruse on Footloose and Anything Goes, touring from January 2006.
Orbital have pushed the limits of Venue's snapshot and MIDI capability, for the Annie Get Your Gun production (based on the1999 Tony Award winning Broadway production).
The tour has also seen the first use of Digidesign's new Personal Q system, with all eight pit musicians being given the facility to fine tune their individual monitor mixes, using PQ Controllers.
Each PQ mix comprises 12 fully adjustable sources, with the mixing itself taking place in the D-Show mix engine. The mix is then fed to any type of personal monitor, headphone amp, hotspot monitor or wedge monitor.To better serve the often opposing needs of house mix and monitor mix, several inputs are duplicated to two channels on the console. The top layer channels feed the house, while the duplicate inputs on the bottom layers are EQ'd differently and sent to auxes, which feed the PQ system. The true dual control offered by PQ allowsReymes-Cole to review any changes the musicians make to their mix and offer assistance should problems arise.
Also deployed by Orbital is G-Type MIDI sequencing software to drive the desk, and the production company have carried out a physical modification to their D-Show console, introducing a four-button remote control to directly interface with this and other software.
Although mostly using Venue's onboard effects, the production carries an external reverb engine. Owen explains: "The reverbs and sampler which trigger the sound effects, are controlled by the G-Type - so we just have to hit the go button which comes out of the back of D-Show on a multipin connector."
They also utilise Focusrite's 6-band parametric EQ d2 plug-in - included with every Venue system - with 32 d2s in the plug-in rack, one inserted across each of the radio mic channels. Similarly, Focusrite d3 compression and dynamics serve to control bass, brass and trumpets.
Orbital were an early adopter of digital sound technology, and have become major investors. Owen says: "The desk contains a combination of the best input and output structures of other desks we have used. It allows us to use two stage boxes to get 96 input channels (of which we are using 93) into a tiny frame which helps enormously in having the entire system up and running quickly.
"The infrastructure involved is so easy - you can place one stage box near the radio mics and another in the pit, and then simply run a digital snake to each."
On Annie Get Your Gun, Reymes-Cole uses largely Bomb Factory plug-ins (notably the Slightly Rude compressor). "The plug-in compressors are used across the drums and bass and the internal drum reverb and internal vocal chorus help fatten things up - plus we have vocal delay as well. Every vocal channel has a Focusrite insert and all groups have Focusrite d2 EQ, since each performer requires a different EQ the second they put their hats on."
Owen has utilised a number of d&b boxes for the main PA. "I'm quite a big fan of the C7 / B2 combination," he says."d&b say that the perfect C7 stack is a C7 Top, a C7 Sub and a B2 Sub, but I find that the C7 Sub is overkill in musical theatre and you get a cleaner sound by running the crossover point of the B2 at a higher point, utilising the bigger drivers for more than low end rumble. I'm not sure how well that would work for rock & roll," he notes, "but it makes a great combination for a classical musical".
The rest of the PA consists of d&b C6's for centre cluster, d&b E3s for front fills, and d&b Ci80's for
