Martin simply Capital

Capital Sound Hire, one of the UK's leading sound rental companies, have kept their stock on the leading edge with a first-phase purchase of Martin Audio Wavefronts, amounting to an arena sound reinforcement system. The Wavefront system will augment the company's existing hire stock of Martin F2s, which have toured the world with bands of the calibre of Take That, Simple Minds, and Status Quo.

The first delivery, placed through Martin Audio's exclusive UK Wavefront 8 dealer, LMC Audio Systems, is for 38 Wavefront 8 Compacts, with 24 Wavefront 8S bass cabinets, and 24 WSX 18-inch sub-bass cabinets. The system recently debuted with great success at Highclere Castle near Newbury.

Capital Sound Hire owner Keith Davis had been looking at alternative systems to complement the F2 and was urged by Martin Audio to try the new Wavefront 8 system. Capital thus took several engineers up to Martin Audio's High Wycombe headquarters to evaluate the system and then ran a stack in their yard to confirm their initial assessment. Remembers Keith: "When we heard them, we just went 'wow'. They sounded great."

Martin Audio. (Contact Details).

Bowled over by A&H

In one of the earlier documented references to British sport, Sir Francis Drake was playing a game of bowls when being informed of the imminent attack of the Spanish Armada. Please note he wasn't involved in a quick five-a-side football match, nor for that matter was he sending down a couple of gentle off-breaks in the Plymouth cricket nets, furthermore it is generally accepted by historians that Sir Frank's jump shot was a non-starter. Given this information, one wonders how the course of history would have changed if bowls became the national pastime, and it was bowls that was exported to the colonies as the sport of choice. The World Bowls Cup, bowls hooligans, being given a good spanking by Germany in bowls before a heaving capacity crowd — all these concepts were possibly only a hair's breadth away.

On the same site as that legendary game, at Hoe near Plymouth, Soundwaves '96 became the most successful live event the city has seen since the return of the all-conquering fleet, when the good people of Plymouth made a joyful noise upon the crumhorn and lyre, dancing the gig well into the night. This time around. Big Country and Stiff Little Fingers topped the bill, with a weekend attendance of 85,000.

Fearless Audio were contracted to supply the PA, with Directors Kenrin Allen and Lance Hendy co-ordinating the system over two music stages. An Allen & Heath GL4 was employed front-of-house, with a GL3000 used as dedicated monitor console for the rapid turnover of bands using Stage 2. Like all the GL range, the GL3000 is a dual function console, so its eight auxes can be assigned to monitor mixes through sub panel dip switches, providing a fully featured monitor board.

I mean to say, it's not as though bowls hasn't got the excitement or the drama to be a real crowd-pulling sensation. I'm sure that the Sir Francis Drake/Sir Walter Raleigh head to heads drew capacity crowds.

Allen & Heath. (Contact Details).

Boyzone sell-out with DA-88

Boyzone saw their status as a live act take a hike with their recent sell out UK arena tour. Two Tascam DA-88s and an RC-848 remote controller were used in a sophisticated sound design, combining live musicians and digital playback.

The 19 date tour, which took in nine different cities, including four dates at London's Wembley Arena, saw Ronan, Shane, Mikey, Stephen, and Keith joined on stage by a line-up of bass, drums, guitars, and keyboards. With the switch from club playback dates to live arena touring band, there still remained a requirement for some elements to be retained on tape and mixed with the live performance, and what with some pretty comprehensive on-board synchronization capabilities, the DA-88 was well suited to the task.

Tour Manager, Mark Plunket, commented: "The Tascams provided us with a very high quality and totally reliable bridge from DAT playback to live performance, allowing us to retain all the production elements like loops and samples and FX tracks. The DA-88s handled the task superbly, never once missing their cue."

All-boy 'groups' can evoke some extreme responses amongst the general populous. Mystifyingly, the pre-pubescent girls amongst us are whipped into a lust-induced hysteria, while everyone else is struck with anything from stupified bewilderment to extreme annoyance. When the seminal boy band New Kids on the Block appeared, I confess to being so irrationally resentful of their existence that I actually cut out a picture of them (all oozing posey 'attitood') and taped it to my dart board. Over the course of a couple of weeks, my friends and I devised an incredibly satisfying game, based on a sophisticated scoring system with points ratings according to how vital or objectionable the body part was. Highly recommended.

TEAC UK Ltd. (Contact Details).

Crest preach the gospel

Tour Tech, the PA rental company responsible for the audio production on the recent Manic Street Preachers tour, were delighted with the many favourable reviews given to the sound — from the pop press to the band itself.

Part of the reason, according to Tour Tech's Dick Rabel, was due to the company's switch to Crest amplification. FOH Sound Engineer Robb Allen used Crest 8001s and 9001s to drive Tour Tech's TT4C PA stacks, while monitor man Rollie drove the stage sound through Crest CA6s, mixed through the Crest Century Series LM monitor board, which he had particularly specified.

Explained Rabel: "He had used one in the past and really liked it. This time, because the size of venue varied dramatically from place to place — while the requirement for a stage set, with box truss and drapes, remained constant — the room available for Monitor City ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. While the LM has all the facilities of the proprietary consoles, the beauty of it is that because of its compact nature it could fit into a smaller space, which was a major consideration. Rollie had a great time with it and there were absolutely no problems."

Crest Audio. (Contact Details).

Spirit's live performer

Media Communications, Charlotte, one of North Carolina's premiere production facilities, has recently purchased six Spirit ProTrackers. Utilized in conjunction with seven Tascam DA-88s, Media Comm records live performances for everything from television and radio broadcast to CD and home video release.

Recent successes for the company indue the Beach Country production in Myrtle Beach, North Carolina that included Country & Western stars Alabama, The Gatlin Brothers, Ronnie Milsap, and Rich Little. In addition, New York band The Nudes will be using Media Comm's ProTrackers to record their live CD, while the entire WEND 'Weenie Roast' Festival (41 bands, headlined by The Presidents of the United States of America and Paul Westerberg) was recorded for a charity compilation CD to benefit the homeless.

Chip Zayak, Senior Audio Engineer at Media Comm explains the Beach Country production: "The Spirit ProTrackers far surpassed everything I thought they would be. Everything went 48-track digital, and the recording came back sounding amazing. They were as clean as could be. We keep our ProTracker and DA-88s in two Calzone fibreglass cases, so everything's very compact."

Spirit by Soundcraft (Contact Details).

AKG's 'Prodigious' qualities

As briefly mentioned in the PLASA News AKG's WMS 300 UHF radio microphone system has recently been put through its paces by The Prodigy, who have been using the AKG mics while charging around summer festivals, both in the UK and around the world. The band have been using WMS 300 transmitters for vocalists Maxim and Keith, and a further two channels for the band's guitarist, Gizz.

Gigs have included Phoenix and Reading Festivals, the massively well-attended Oasis shows at Knebworth (see p.32) and Cork, plus a host of other dates in the UK and across Europe. For the 'Breathe' UK tour currently underway, AKG (always ones to keep their high profile customer's fetishes catered for) has supplied co-front man Maxim, with chrome-plated AKG WMS 300 handheld transmitters: "I've had a steel gauntlet made which I've been using since Phoenix — that's where the idea for the chrome AKG mics came from." Err... yeah, right Maxim.

Shortly after the tour, on November 11, the Prodigy will release a new single called 'Breathe' which features live versions of 'Their Law' and 'Poison' as well as a new track called 'Trick'.

Harman Audio. (Contact Details).

AC/DC's current rig

Aussie rocker AC/DC, currently on a world tour to promote their latest album, Ballbreaker are using a huge Electro-Voice sound system supplied by UK sound company SSE Hire in Europe and dB Sound in the USA.

The key to any AC/DC concert is high quality, high SPL sound combined with an imposing stage show, fronted by vocalist Brian Johnson and guitarist Angus Young. One stunt apparently involved Brian Johnson being swung onto stage on a wrecking ball... quality stuff. The system was based around a mix of MT2 and MT4 enclosures, the whole mix is controlled by Engineer Paul 'Pablo' Boothroyd, who, fresh from his last outing [with] Paul McCartney, used a Midas XL4 console front of house with as little signal processing and effects as possible. A Midas XL3 was used on monitors. "They want to sound like a pub band — but a lot louder," says Boothroyd. "My job is to make them sound as natural as possible, and the EV system allows me to do that accurately without adding unwanted elements to my mix."

Mark IV PAG. (Contact Details).

EQing till his fingers bled

When Bryan Adams Summer of 96 tour (a name cleverly playing on the fact that it was summer at the time) arrived in Europe, it did so with an impressive complement of BSS Audio effects rack processors, supplied by Vancouver-based Jason Sound Industries. It was two years ago that Adams' FOH Engineer Jody Perpick was first introduced to what was then the new wireless remote for the FCS-926 Varicurve Dual Equaliser Analyser. "It was great for setting the EQs and delays, and I wouldn't give it back," remembers Jody. "I told them to send the bill to Jeff (Lilly) and used it right away." Lilly, who runs JSI, says: "Now you'd have to arm wrestle that thing away from him" — although one shot with a tranquiliser dart has been found to be more reliable.

Jody has BSS Varicurve devices and remote control on the PA, with additional slaves and a further remote system in his effects rack for channel inserts and MIDI patches, using the Events system. This enables him to set up pre-defined sequences of programme changes linked to MIDI controlled equipment; each time the button is hit it throws out the MIDI patch changes to all the effects. Jody uses two remotes — one anglepoise-fixed over his Soundcraft Europa desk to make those Events MIDI patch changes, the other to tweak the EQ during the show. "The remote works great," said the fingers bled engineer with evangelistic zeal. "It's changed my life dramatically." I can sympathise; that's what I said when I first got a remote for my TV.

While on the subject, BSS have very recently expanded the capabilities of their FPC-900 Varicurve portable wireless remote controller. By upgrading the software they have enabled the unit to perform certain functions of the Omnidrive, as well as the TCS Series delays, thus fulfilling the role of a complete system manager rather than EQ controller. Directly controlling TCS-803 Multi-Tap Time Correctors and TCS-804 Dual Time Correctors it can be used to set up delays, including delay towers, from any remote part of the auditorium; with the Omnidrive system, it can set band gains, delays, and mutes, and a full Varicurve system.

BSS Audio. (Contact Details).