DATE: 22/9/85
VENUE: The Playhouse, Edinburgh'.
BAND: The Cure
PA Co: Britannia Row

It was a cold, dark, winter's night, the wind was howling and the rain pelted into my face and I struggled, with every last vestige of energy, into the waiting limousine. (Did I say that? I meant to say Morris 1000. Sometimes the faults on this typewriter really annoy me.) Anyway, back to the subject in hand. This was the setting for my trip to Edinburgh, one (fine?) autumn's evening. Honestly, the things I have to endure in order to bring you the latest advances in PA technology. I've crawled from my deathbed on my hands and knees across broken glass just to get to a gig.

The venue is a rather old Victorian-ish theatre/cinema/concert hall. It holds around 3000 people and has a nice wide stage which is about 5 feet off the floor. It's a little like the Rainbow Theatre in London. There's a really high proscenium arch which is great for getting lights up out of the way and there are also points for flying PA if required, which on this occasion, it was. Mixing position is in the first circle and this was done very ably by Roger Meashan who used a Midas 32-8-2 with Pro4 modules. I fell in love with this particular console a long time ago but I will try to remain unbiased. Roger used the 8 subs thus:

1-2 Kit
3-4 Backline
5-6 Keys & Sax
7-8 Vocals & Effects

The outboard rack was certainly not the largest I've ever seen but it has to be one of the most versatile. I've always been a great campaigner for carrying as little as possible and making it do as much as possible and it's nice to see other people have the same kind of idea. It's all very well having half a dozen effects racks with lots of flashing lights but if it doesn't make it sound any better at the end of the day then it's not really worth the effort, is it? Now that I've got that off my chest, I'll get up off the couch and tell you what was in the rack:

Lexicon 224X — Keys, sax, vocals
Klark Teknik DN 780 — Drums
Eventide H949 — Snare
Lexicon Super Prime Time — Keys, snare
AMS 15 80S — Vocals, sax
8 Kepex Noise Gates — kick drum, snare top, snare bottom, 5 toms
4 Drawmer Dual Comps — Kickdrum, bass, keys, sax
1 BSS Dual Comp De-Esser — Vocals

Maryland are an American PA Co who, like so many other American companies, design their own speaker systems using standard, tried and tested drivers. This particular system, as far as I'm led to believe, is called a 'Baltimore' system. (I'm sure if I'm wrong then Britannia Row will correct me). Basically the rig is made up from two kinds of cabinets called high packs and low packs, but knowing Americans they will probably be called hi pax and lo pax.

Starting, then, with the lo pack which is very straightforward. It is exactly the same size as a hi pack and therefore makes stacking and flying a lot easier. They are roughly the same size as Turbosound TMS3 cabinets just in case you're interested. Inside the lo packs are 4X15 JBLs (I told you it was straightforward). The hi packs handle the mid and high and are loaded with 4X12 JBLs and TAD 4001s. Roger decided that a little extra top end was required and added a smattering of Altec 'Manta Rays' which did their job very well. Frequency dividing came by way of a custom-built Maryland 3-way crossover doing its business at 250Hz and 1.25kHz. As the more astute among you will be asking yourselves, "How were the 'Manta Rays' crossed in?" Calm yourselves — Mr Meashan used another Maryland crossover at 6kHz. Amps out front were:

Lo — SAE P500
Mid — SAE P250
Hi — Crest 5001
Super Hi — Altec 500

The stacking arrangement on each side was nine flown cabinets and six on the stage. The flown cabs were stacked three across and three high with five Los and four His, while the stage arrangement was three Los across the way with three His on top.

On monitors was Brian Olsen who used a Midas 30-10 desk, again with Pro4 modules, and the outputs of this went through 10 Klark Teknik DN27As. The monitor rig was fairly simple except for one part, more of which later on. Basically, everyone has wedges in front of them which were comprised of 2X12 JBLs and a JBL 2445. Everyone, that is, except Boris Williams on drums who had a Maryland drumfill. This comprised 2X15s; 2X12s; 2445 (all JBL) and was driven, via a Maryland 3-way crossover, by the same general configuration of amps as was used out front, with the exception of the Altec set up used for super hi. Remember the bit I mentioned that wasn't that simple? Well here it is, so batten down the hatches and tie down all loose objects. The wedges were all fed from a Maryland 8-way switching rack with built-in crossover, compressor/limiter and routing system, which sent the signal to Crest 5001's for bass, and SAE P50s for mid/hi. All this audio information appeared, as if by magic, courtesy of the switching rack on multiway connectors. Therefore to set up only required a few multiway cables and saved a lot of time. For those of you who run small PA companies you might like to think about doing something like this yourselves since it would only take a couple of days to wire up your amp rack patchbays and make up small multiway cables. Especially in small companies, saving time on setting up can go a long way to getting a lot more business and a better reputation.

And now, as they say in the business, the band. On vocals and sometimes guitar was Robert Smith, whose dulcet tones emanated from a Shure SM78. All the backline amplification was by Peavey and both Porl Thomson and Lawrence Tolhurst played guitar, miked with a Beyer M88 each. They also tinkled the plastic-ivories which were an Ensoniq Mirage each, a DX7 for Lawrence and a JX8P for Porl. These were sub-mixed through a little Boss mixer and then DIed with Countryman DIs. Simon Gallup played bass which was again a Peavey amp/cab set up and this was miked with an RE20 and DIed through a BSS box. Playing a Yamaha kit with Zildjian cymbals (well actually he used drum sticks) was Boris Williams and his kit was miked thus:

Kick — M88
Snare Top — M201
Snare Bottom — D224
Toms — MD421s
Overheads — C414
Two Hi-Hats — C451/CK5
Crash — C451/CK5

Boris also had a couple of Simmons pads which came straight into the PA via one of these new all singing, all dancing Simmons brains.

Overall the sound was good and I really enjoyed being kicked in the guts by the bass drum from 35 yards back and still being able to hear the rest of the mix.

Using the Kepex gates on the kit certainly helped a lot and the drum sound was very tight for a live situation. I'm led to believe that Roger Meashan has been with the band for quite a while and it has paid off. Every band who is serious about what they're doing should have a regular engineer.

Last but not least, I really enjoyed the light-show as well but that's another story and somebody else's column, so I'll leave that for now.