Roland ProAV products have been supporting the event for the past three years but this year was the first time that a full Roland setup was specified with the new M-5000C controlling the monitors and the M-5000 at the heart as the FOH console. The Mérida Theatre has been home to the Festival de Mérida (Festival of Classical Theatre of Mérida) since 1933, the oldest of its kind celebrated in Spain. For the fourth year the CERES Award Ceremony took place at Mérida at the end of the run of ten summer productions at the theatre with the awards presented to those involved.
Mixing the live theatre production, broadcasting live for Spanish television and mixing live musicians all at the same, the Roland setup included the M-5000 running 90 channels and both 5.1 + Left/Right in FOH and the M-5000C controlling wedges, in-ears and personal monitoring systems. The Roland S-4000S, S-2416, S-1608, S-0816 Digital Snake solutions took care of all the inputs and outputs for the stage, OB van, PA and microphones.
In a setup that truly demonstrated the flexibility and adaptability of the O.H.R.C.A configurable architecture of the M-5000 and M-5000C, the consoles delivered seamlessly for three applications simultaneously - broadcast, theatre and live music. The M-5000 at FOH position mixed down 90 channels delivered from the I/O boxes on the stage before splitting the signals down to the M-5000C used as the monitor console. The feed from inputs on the back panel of the M-5000 and another I/O box (the Roland S-0816 8 x 16 FOH Unit) for video control were used to send all the video feeds to the OB van for the live television broadcast.
In the stage area, the 32 inputs provided by the Roland S-4000S-3208 Digital Snake were used just for inputs from the bands playing at the ceremony, different inputs for the stage band and for guest bands. The inputs on a second unit (Roland S-1608) were used for extra monitors around the stage area. On one side of the stage 16 wireless microphones were connected to the inputs of a Roland S-2416 Stage Unit. The outputs of the S-2416 were used to feed the amplifiers and PA system close by.
The compact M-5000C simultaneously controlled three types of monitors for the ceremony - traditional wedge monitors, in ear monitors and the Roland M-48 personal monitoring system.
Pepe Ferrer, sound system designer and FOH engineer comments, "The CERES ceremony is possibly one of the most complicated shows we work on every year. When we started to see this year's requirements and the script I immediately thought that this is a job for the M-5000. I'm glad we had the opportunity to use it; it behaved really well and fast. Also we noticed a level up in terms of audio quality compared to other consoles we have been using in previous years. From now on, M-5000 will be my choice, no doubts."
(Jim Evans)
