Sound and lighting responsibilities fell to the capable hands of the Reading-based Sound Foundation Ltd Group. Having previously done the 2007 Global Day of Prayer held at Upton Park, West Ham United's Football ground, Andy Barr from the event's organisers Pure Solutions had no hesitation in calling SFL again. Yamaha mixing consoles handled sound at both FOH and Monitor mixing duties. Two M7CL-48s where required, giving a total of 96 channels for FOH and a single PM5D took care of monitors. Mark Payne, SFL's technical director and co-founder, mixed at FOH. With a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Birmingham University) and a member of the Institute of Acoustics, Mark is in a strong position to be able to say why he uses Yamaha's consoles.
He explains how he approached using the two M7CLs. "I am using two for front of house because I need 96 channels in front of me instantly. Apart from a morning sound check we have had no technical rehearsal prior to the gig, so I am mixing very much everything as I go. So I need channels available to me to mix instantly and not to have to worry about which layer I am working on. I have a Master and a Slave desk with the two M7CL-48s cascaded together by Yamaha's Mini-YGDAI (Yamaha General Digital Audio Interface) MY16-AT card. The slave desk I am using to mix the elements of orchestra and choir and I am then sending a sub mix of four group mixes from that to the master desk. The master M7CL-48 is handling the mix of the house band based around a line up of vocals, drums, bass, keyboards and guitars as well the radio microphones for the presenters. The final matrix of five output mixes from the master desk feed the PA amps sent via AES digital at 48K. The event is also being taken by a broadcaster and they are getting a feed from my four orchestral and choir groups as well as feeds from the band off the master desk."
Payne goes onto further explain what he likes about working with the M7CL-48. "It's a brilliant desk to use and so simple. I love the layout. The "Centralogic" control interface is very intuitive and I can very quickly access all console parameters in terms of EQ, gates and compressors. Using blocks of 8 I can instantly make adjustments, for example, to all my backing vocal microphones. For this gig I am using four FX from the FX Engine. A reverb for the drums, one for the vocals, a basic tap tempo delay line and a reverb for the orchestra. All standard stuff but I can quickly adjust any parameters on the FX Engine really quickly. On this gig there are a lot of acts to deal with and line ups that can change at the last minute, so working fast is absolutely vital and this desk allows me to do that. I know there are 300 scene memories on the desk but for this event I am mixing the whole thing live apart from one scene memory stored for a line up of from a children's choir I stored during sound check."
On stage monitor duties are handled by a Yamaha PM5D console under the control of SFL's Colin Hounsome, who has worked for the company since 1998. Utilising all 48 channels he gets the same split as Payne for the house band but for the orchestra and choir he is relying on the four sub group mixes from the FOH slave M7CL-48. Working closely with SFL director Tom Jeffery, who was one of the stage managers, the pair handle a variety of line ups, aside from the band, orchestra and choir including Brazilian and Rap artists, and one act consisting of 30 drummers and percussionists. No mean feat and everybody hears what they want in their monitors.
The speaker solution was achieved with over 88 boxes of d&b Q and J
