Production manager/FOH sound engineer John Ryan and monitor engineer Marco Dellatorre, who have worked together with the artist for 10 years, were pleased to be onboard the house's two installed Vi6 digital consoles, while Eduardo Puhl, a house engineer at another premier London venue where Vi's are installed (Koko in Camden Town) brought his Vi1 (and Vi Compact stage rack) to handle the broadcast and recording feed. The show was streamed live via Living Indie, enabling thousands of fans to watch it online.
All three sound engineers bring considerable digital mixing experience and favoured the idea of using the house consoles. Of the broadcast and recording element Puhl - a resident sound engineer at Koko since 2010 - explained: "We took analogue splits from the other desk channels into the stage rack down, running optical fibre to the Vi1 which was located in a production unit just outside the venue."
Aside from dealing with the broadcast mix he also recorded the show as a back-up, using the redundant port on the Vi1 MADI card to output to a MADI sound interface, and into a laptop running Reaper DAW software.
Meanwhile, at FOH, John Ryan said he was always happy to use the Vi6 mixer, and received great support from house engineer, Matt Valentine. "We generally use locally supplied equipment, and always ask for mixers of our preference, such as the Vi6. The workflow was flawless and the local audio crew, with whom we had worked before, was extremely professional, helping us to deliver a great show."
Marco Dellatorre has been using the Vi6 since it was launched back in 2008 when he was introduced to it "for a long and complex tour" by Italian distributor Marco Porro. "I was immediately impressed with the sound and its features have come a long way since then." The length of the tour gave him a chance to thoroughly evaluate the desk and provide feedback, with many of his suggestions subsequently adopted.
At IndigO2, Marco ran 24 outputs from the monitor desk, with parametric EQ on all IEM and graphic EQ on all wedges, with no gates or compressors (and snapshot on Let's Dance). "I use the desk's preview feature during the show because I need to create a second snapshot for Let's Dance. On that song there are a lot of changes and even if I can create this snapshot during sound check, I prefer to create it on the fly because my mix approach is live and I follow the band mood every gig," he explains. He also praised the house support team. "They set all my outs and ins the way I would normally use them, prior to arrival, it was very fast and professional."
In summary Eduardo Puhl said he had certainly been impressed with the show. "This was a fantastic experience - everything worked and that's what you need in such a busy gig."
The sell-out show itself was organised to celebrate the partnership with O2 and Bauer Media's work experience initiative, GoThinkBig.
(Jim Evans)
