Both The Concert for Diana and the UK Live Earth gig seven days later featured a diverse array of high profile acts playing short sets. The requirements for each of the many acts were very different and, with extremely short turnaround times, the audio production was always going to be a major logistical challenge for sound company Britannia Row.
For monitoring, the company's solution was to employ three different monitor consoles, with a Yamaha DME64N digital mix engine to act as a switching matrix between them. Using a DME in this way had already been tried by Brit Row at June's Wireless festival in London's Hyde Park and the success of the system meant that the company had the confidence to use it at the ultra-high profile Wembley shows.
"This year is one of first years that we've used digital desks on regular festivals, in that situation where bands just turn up and play with no sound check," says Brit Row monitor engineer Jon Lewis. "The DME seemed like the ideal way to make the changeovers between multiple consoles a lot easier and faster. It worked really well there, so we were totally confident in it. It was the obvious choice for the Diana concert and Live Earth."
Fitted with four MY16 AD/DA cards, the DME64N allowed a complex system to be greatly simplified, eliminating the time which would have been required to re-patch the system when changing between the monitor consoles.
"It took care of all the outputs between the consoles and did the switchovers between them," says Brit Row's Jerry Wing. "We had everything sync referenced to an Apogee Big Ben and it enabled the entire monitor rig to be self-contained. Everything was singing from the same sheet, the system worked incredibly well."
(Jim Evans)
