Veteran programmer/engineer Herman Ward has been running the mix for the Usher tour, covering live shows and special events like the recent Showtime special. Ward, who has worked with a diverse mix of artists including Limp Bizkit, Prince, Luther Vandross and Klymaxx, recently put the band in the hands of Mackie's new TT24 digital live mixer, a move he says simplified life for him and the performers he takes care of.
"This is a fast moving show, and with our last digital mixer it sometimes took too long to step through all the menus to make a change," he explains. "If I needed to pull something up in a stage wedge, sometimes I had to go through six or seven pages worth of menus to get there. With the TT24, I can get to everything within two steps. The TT24 is as quick as I am."
Ward also used Mackie's new Onyx 1640 mixers for Usher's recent Showtime special, which aired March 1, and was impressed with the mixer's sound. "We took the keyboard mix from one Onyx, fed it and everything else into the second Onyx, and that was all we needed. It sounded better than a lot of really expensive mixers."
(Lee Baldock)
