SSL L550 in the mix on Frampton’s final tour
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Yakabuski began mixing audio in 1981, and with almost 40 years of mixing and touring under his belt, was only introduced to SSL a few years ago – admitting he was at first reluctant to switch to the console manufacturer.
“I wanted to hear from my colleagues that stability on the road was not an issue – and I did,” he recalls. “So I knew I needed to get a board and give it a try. With an upcoming tour approaching, I decided to look further into using an SSL L550 for the FOH mixer. I made some calls, and then was treated to a few hours of one-on-one instruction from SSL's Fernando Guzman which peaked my interest. I was ready to dive in.”
Peter Frampton Finale - The Farewell Tour culminated in October 2019, and was Frampton’s chance to say farewell to fans that have been coming to his shows for over 50 years. After being thoroughly impressed with the L550, Yakabuski switched to the console for this tour, and hasn’t looked back since.
“The FOH mix on this tour could easily be done on a large format analogue console, but the previous FOH engineer and current monitor engineer decided to move it to digital for footprint reasons, and also ease of save/recall when using consoles brought in for private and one-off events,” Yakabuski explains – adding that he did not use automation scenes for each song or many of the other ‘digital' benefits the console boasts.
“The key feature of the console that I used the most was its sonic richness. It sounded so good it removed the necessity to add on any external signal processing or plugins accessed via Madi connectivity. It became analogue mixing all over again, on a console that offered me multiple options for routing and processing, but begged to be ‘left alone’ to simply sound great and blend great-sounding inputs from the stage.”
(Jim Evans)
