PA company Sigma AV is servicing this UK tour, and has managed to fit all the travelling audio production into a long-wheelbase Sprinter van. That's a 20KW sound system, eight-way monitor system, digital console, mic stands, multicore and all cables in one Sprinter van.
Central to the compact nature of the Sigma rig is the new Roland V-Mixing System, incorporating the M-400 digital audio mixer, which weighs just 56 kilos in a sturdy flightcase, and two Cat 5-based Digital Snake multicores, with fully racked-up stageboxes.
Peter Barnard of Sigma AV bought into Roland Systems' V-Mixing concept especially for this tour, and is so pleased with the results that he is now planning to deploy both digital mixer and Snakes on a 150-date tour with the legendary Drifters, starting in August. "Roland has really hit the nail on the head with this; its beauty is that the system is totally integrated - from stagebox to console - and it sounds great as well."
Barnard continues: "I'm an analogue guy, but I got my head round it very quickly. It has a very intuitive interface, and in truth, its operation is very similar to an analogue desk. But where the majority of digital consoles sound horrible, the Roland sounds fat, it has lots of dynamic range - it sounds analogue."
For her run of dates, which has to be fitted around extensive TV commitments, Jane McDonald is playing 1500-seater town theatre venues, and Barnard highlights the importance of console footprint to a tour like this. "Promoters and theatre managers should take note. With the Roland M-400, there are no sideracks and very little real estate; at the most, it takes out only two seats, yet it can do all the inputs and outputs required for quite elaborate theatre productions. In my opinion, it ticks far more boxes than many of the consoles made by prominent manufacturers."
Roland's multicore system, namely two S-1608 Digital Snakes, is at the heart of Jane McDonald's touring PA. "It is fully integrated with the console, it is lightweight, and if anything goes wrong, I can just nip out to PC World and buy another piece of Cat 5 for pennies."
(Jim Evans)
