The four-piece - comprising brothers Joseph and David Dunwell on vocals and guitar, bassist Rob Clayton and drummer Adam Taylor - has played both club shows and support slots in bigger venues over the course of the tour.
Sean is operations manager at Subfrantic, a rental company with extensive use and knowledge of Yamaha digital consoles. He chose a Yamaha QL5 and Rio3224-D as the ideal solution for the size-versus-features requirements of a hard working band which is touring on a budget.
"Club tours are challenging at the best of times, especially when you're faced with different house mixers, monitors and PA systems of varying quality," says Sean. "Having the QL5 on the road with us has made everything so much easier. Along with carrying our own IEMs, microphones and stands, it has meant that we can be confident going into any venue, knowing we're going to produce a show which is up to the same standard as those we've been in playing larger venues and at major festivals.
"The other challenge, as with everything, is budget," he continues. "Having something as small as a QL5 has kept our transport costs right down."
Inputs comprise a five piece drum kit, bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, four vocal mics, ambient mics for the in-ear monitors and 16 tracks of playback. Outputs comprise a stereo in-ear mix for each of the performers, a separate output for the click track and a small wedge for bass player Rob.
"Having the band all on IEMs has only been possible because we're using the QL5. I use the Portico compressors and EQs on the vocals to add depth and warmth and I also have the vocals split into two separate channels, which allows for different compression, EQ and reverbs for the FOH sound and their monitors," says Sean.
A further benefit of the QL5s effect's architecture means Sean can cope with the vagaries of different house PAs.
"I've got the board set up with a stereo L+R matrix, Sub matrix and stereo delay matrix, because the venues have had very varied PA setups," he continues. "I also use the Dynamic EQ a lot to remove sibilance from the vocal mics, because the sound can be harsh in venues where the PA quality leaves something to be desired!
"The amount of effects on the QL5 also means I can be very creative with the songs. I can mix the songs much closer to the studio versions than we've been able to achieve on previous tours."
(Jim Evans)
