Dizzee Rascal, Tinchy Stryder, JLS, Taio Cruz, The Sugababes and many more performed at the gig which was hosted by DJs Trevor Nelson and Mistajam - with Tim Westwood DJing for the night.
To optimise the sound coming from both the main live stage and the in-the-round second stage - used by presenters, DJs and playback artists - the company fielded two Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles.
The live desk had 48 inputs - running active splits to the OB truck - while the show desk had 32 channels of presenter's mics, DJs and playback passing through it. "As far as inputs were concerned, 18 channels of radios and 16 for e IEMs passed through the desk," said SSE's Miles Hillyard.
SSE used the 360 System's Instant Replay for the playback -p and speed was certainly of the essence. "For example we would take a quick presenter link and then the vocals to track artists, like DIzzee Rascal or the Sugababes.
"Sometimes we used the Vi6 to fade between the two systems so it was seamless and the sound image would change accordingly." To change the orientation as the action moved from stage to stage - two of the in-the-round enclosures would switch in on delays, for example, when the music was coming off the main stage.
"In terms of sound alignment this was as complicated as it gets," says Hillyard. "We achieved this with sends from the desk and four dynamics processors to achieve a quick fader change."
Tom Wiggans was SSE's crew boss while Jesse Godolphin, on the live desk board, created a show profile / template for every band, enabling guest engineers such as Steve Levitt and Chuck 'Knowledge' Boyle to simply walk on.
The result was that tens of thousands of people who weren't at the event watched a special nine-hour simulcast extravaganza from 1Xtra Live - front and backstage. Highlights of the event were transmitted in a special 30-minute programme on BBC Three, presented by Radio 1's Reggie Yates.
(Jim Evans)
