Noel Gallagher has appeared in two concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust. Gallagher was flanked by former Oasis bandmates Gem Archer on guitar and Jay Darlington on keyboards, and backed by an eight-piece female orchestra plus the Crouch End Choir. Britannia Row Productions provided a dual Midas XL8 live performance system for FOH and monitors, with a Klark Teknik DN9696 high resolution audio recorder for virtual soundchecking.
FOH engineer Dan Lewis had tried out a Midas PRO6 with some Oasis multitracks he’d recorded on the band’s last tour. “I quickly got to grips with the PRO6, and noticed it had the same impressive sound quality that made us spec an XL4 for the Oasis tour,” he says. “Things just sounded as they should sound, and needed very little in the way of processing.”
As the TCT gigs drew closer and the band’s line up emerged, it was obvious that a high channel count was needed to accommodate the band, string section and choir. This led Lewis in the direction of the larger XL8, and the fortnight’s rehearsal period was an ideal opportunity to experiment with the new setup.
“In the past, when faced with amplifying a choir, we traditionally brought in a second desk and engineer, feeding stem mixes to FOH and monitors,” says Lewis. “The flexibility of the larger ‘area B’ section on the XL8 and the limited space in the RAH meant it made more sense to upgrade the FOH desk to an XL8, with Pavel Zakrzewski from Britannia Row Productions using the area B section to mix the choir. I was keen to keep the footprint compact and use as much onboard processing as possible so as not to take unnecessary racks with us.
Lewis used the XL8’s onboard gates for the percussive instruments, with some corrective compression on vocals and keyboards. “I grouped the string section together and inserted a compressor, and used the side chain EQ boost centred at about 1600 Hz so the compressor only kicked in when the first violins got going,” he says. “That pulled back some of the harsher notes but letting the warmth of the violas and cellos come through.
“Learning many digital mixing platforms in the past few years, I’ve found most of the time is spent learning a new surface layout and the specific manufacturer’s jargon for the features available. However I found the XL8 and PRO6 had a very fast learning curve. The flexibility of the AES50 network is very impressive too, and they sound great.”
Lewis also used the Klark Teknik DN9696 for virtual sound checking. “I used the DN9696 to record the rehearsal each day, then ran through it in the evening when I had some quiet time to myself,” he says. “Previous experience has showed me that mixing in noisy rehearsal rooms can be impossible, so this way of doing it really worked.”
Over on monitors was Nahuel Gutierrez, who also used an XL8 during Oasis’ last, 15-month world tour. “It was a pleasure to use the XL8 again; the more I use it the more I like it!” he says. “The software is getting better and better, Midas is doing a great job. The new diagnostics page is great, and I had time to play with the fantastic new three-band compressors. I was also impressed with channel compressors and how each one suits a different instrument or style of music. I used the XL8’s slap back delay and Noel thought it sounded amazing. I also used onboard effects for choir reverb, strings reverb and Noel’s acoustic guitar.
“It was very refreshing hearing new sounds on the XL8 and it still impresses me every time with how natural, it sounds, without needing much EQ. This was a nice acoustic show and I really got to hear the sound quality of the desk. You really appreciate things like those Midas pre amps when you’re working at low sound levels; again the XL8 beats the other desks as far as I’m concerned.”
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