The 90 minute show is a mixture of dialogue and songs, with Sara playing piano accompanied by Rutger Hoorn on drums. Having used rented mixing consoles up until now, Sara and mix engineer Jan Heideveld felt it was time to have their own system.
"Sara has 150 live shows coming up in the next 18 months, so we felt it was worthwhile to invest in a system that would tour with us," says Jan, an experienced sound designer and mixing engineer, who has worked with Sara on her last two tours.
After an 'audio shootout' of several different digital consoles, they chose the CL1 for its sound quality, functionality and ease of use. Providing inputs and outputs for the CL1 are four R-series units, a Rio1608-D, two Ri8-Ds and an Ro8-D. Complementing the CL system is a Shure ULXD4D, used as a receiver for Sara's handheld and headset microphones, while a pair of Yamaha DXR10s are used as stage monitors.
"When we did the shootout I really liked the neutral sound of the CL series. I knew it would deliver a perfect starting point to balance everything and to fine tune the individual sources, using the onboard effects and Premium Rack," says Jan.
He starts at each venue with a pre-programmed basic setup, but he prefers to mix the shows manually. "The show doesn't require major dynamic changes of settings and I like to mix on the fly," he says. "Currently I use the Neve Portico EQ and LA2A on Sara's voice. But I am still getting to know all the effects.
"The setup is a little bigger than these type of tours would usually need. But, because we almost always use the house PA system, I can be very flexible and have all the matrixes available to interface to the system, if needed."
He continues, "Another big advantage of the CL1 is the selected channel. All the important parameters are directly available next to the screen. I find that very important, especially for the EQ section."
(Jim Evans)
