July_TheWho SD7

PRODUCTION PROFILE: The Who
WHO ARE YOU?
THE BARCLAYCARD BRITISH SUMMER TIME FESTVAL IN HYDE PARK CONTINUES ITS SUCCESS FOR AEG LIVE
WITH A STELLAR LINE UP FOR 2015 INCLUDING THE STROKES, BLUR, KYLIE MINOGUE, TAYLOR SWIFT AND
THE WHO. SIMON DUFF VISITS THE WHO’S CONCERT AND ITS PRODUCTION SUPPLIERS.
The Who have spent much of 2015 on
the road in North America and Europe
on The Who Hits 50! tour, part of what
Roger Daltrey describes is the band’s ‘long
goodbye’. It should come as no surprise that
the band have been at the very top of their
game since the mid 60s. Their production
values have always been cutting edge, both
sonically and visually, and they remain so
today.
FOH MIXING
Mixing at FOH for The Who is the legendary
Robert Collins (Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood,
Pete Townshend) who has been with the band
since 1987. Eighth Day Sound provide audio
equipment for the current arena tour and for
Hyde Park BST with audio which included
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DiGiCo SD7 at both FOH and monitors.
Microphones on Zak Starkey’s drum kit
included Audix Micro-D, with condenser clip
ons for the six toms. For the two bass drums
Collins has recently changed from a Shure Beta
91 A and Audix D 6 to the Shure Beta 52 A.
On the snare top is a Shure Beta 56A and for
snare bottom, a Shure Beta B 181. For Hi Hat
is an AKG C 451 and each cymbal uses a DPA
4061. On bass and electric guitar amps it is
Shure KSM32’s and 57’s. Pete Townshend uses
Demeter DI boxes and for vocals it is the ever
trusted Shure Beta 58 A.
Collins uses some 64 channels from stage
on the SD7. Collins mixes manually with no
scene recalls. Choice of outboard includes
two Summit Audio TLA100 tube levelling
amplifier compressors for Roger Daltrey and
PRODUCTION PROFILE: The Who
Opposite: The Who were one of many high profile acts that played at this year’s British Summer Time in Hyde Park; The festival is sponsored by Barclaycard. Below: Martin Audio’s MLXs were the
subs of choice; For the main stage, the PA inventory comprised two hangs of 16 MLA and one MLD Downfill per side; The band has been touring for much of 2015.
Pete Townshend’s vocals. For other vocal
compression duties dbx160As are deployed,
for reverbs and further processing a TC
Electronic Music 6000 and a TC Electronic
D-two digital delay are in place. Also used
were a DN 360 Graphic EQ and Quantum 2
mastering processor. Collins’ right hand man
from Eighth Day Sound and System Tech for
the American and European tour dates is Chris
Morrison.
MONITOR WORLD
Monitor world mix engineers Bobby Pridden
and Simon Higgs use a DiGiCo SD7 and Midas
XL3. Outboard includes three Lexicon PCM60
Bricasti M7 reverb and a TC EQ station. d&b
audiotechnik M4 and M2 wedges on stage are
powered by d&b audiotechnik D12’s.
For the third consecutive year, Capital
Sound’s premium MLA PA system from Martin
Audio was on duty at in Hyde Park over the
10 day run, to meet both the on, and offsite
requirements of promoters AEG Live and sound
consultants Vanguardia. But with a number of
supplementary stages requiring coverage, in
addition to the main Great Oak Stage, it was
able to field the entire family of MLA multicellular solutions, including the smaller Compact
and Mini versions.
With the site layout now firmly established
in order to minimise neighbourhood noise
pollution, Capital Sound was able to deploy a
similar set-up as in 2014, with minor tweaks to
the delay towers and a raising of the main side
hangs to 12.5-metres from the stage.
Vanguardia Principal Consultant, Olly Creedy,
confirmed that complaints on site had been
“significantly reduced” again, believed to be
their lowest ever levels. He reported: “The
sound has been consistently over 100dB for
the headline acts and for The Who there was
30dB of attenuation in view of the wind, which
we’ve never seen before at Hyde Park. This
would enable sound levels of up to 105dB to
be achieved at the desk while still restricting to
75dB offsite limits.”
For the main stage, the PA inventory
comprised two hangs of 16 MLA and one
MLD Downfill per side, with 12 MLA and one
MLD Downfill for the sidehangs. The sub array
consisted of 21 MLX in a broadside cardioid
array, with a further 11 enclosures back
facing. Additional W8LM line array enclosures
provide front fills, while an array of LE1500
floor monitors were also provided for artist
monitoring.
Martin Connolly, Capital Sound’s Project
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PRODUCTION PROFILE: The Who
Below: The band are said to be saying a ‘long goodbye’ following a career which first caught the rock ‘n’ roll world’s attention in the 60s; Capital Sound supplied the extensive Martin Audio
equipment to the show.
Manager for the main stage commented:
“Although the decision to raise the trim height
was made late in the day, one advantage was
that [Martin Audio application engineers] Andy
Davies and Chris Pyne could look at predictions
and reoptimise this in the software, without
needing to make any physical changes.”
each deployed eight MLA Compacts.
Martin Audio systems were also provided
for two of the remaining four stages. On the
second Barclaycard Stage, eight MLA Compacts
were flown on each side with 16 WS218X subs
in a broadside cardioid array, with four W8LC
providing front fill sound reinforcement. The
“Optocore offers an elegant solution. Copper would have given us no
end of problems, whereas with Optocore there is no signal loss whatsoever. It gives us complete signal transport reliability and it has become one of the best and most flexible tools at our disposal...”
- Martin Connolly, Capital Sound Project Manager
The area behind the FOH tower and barrier
positions had been changed to improve
sightlines, necessitating changes to the delay
design. This was extended to four lines of in
non-concentric arcs (occupying nine positions).
The main nine delays comprised seven MLA and
a single MLD Downfill, supported by a total of
12 MLX subs, whilst delay positions 10 & 11
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only indoor stage was the intimate 200-capacity
Sony Unlimited Tent, which was serviced by
Martin Audio’s tried and trusted package of four
pole-mounted MLA Mini enclosures per side,
atop an MSX power plant, covering the low
end.
Paul Timmins, Capital Sound’s MD
and responsible for the additional stages
added: “While the main stage was able to
accommodate up to 65,000, the two indoor
stages from previous years moved outdoors
to become the Barclaycard Stage, holding an
additional 5,000 people.”
Capital Sound also fielded a front line
crew of 17 personnel, with Malcolm Giles
as main stage crew boss. Others included
the experienced System Tech Toby Donovan
and the FOH Console Techs were the equally
accomplished Chris Pyne and Trevor Gilligan.
“After three years, we have now evolved a
successful formula to optimise the audience
experience at Hyde Park,” summarised Timmins.
“Thanks to the unique functionality of MLA,
historic problems with noise escape are now a
thing of the past and it was nice to be back on
this iconic site.”
Optocore converters have been frequent
fixtures at Hyde Park over the past few
summers, providing pristine, site wide digital
signal transmission over optical fibre. The
company’s expanding Optocore inventory was
deployed by Capital Sound. All distributed from
the FOH rack presided over by experienced
system tech Toby Donovan.
Connolly explained that this year they would
be using 14 interfaces in a redundant loop from
the Avid Profile desks at FOH. “We’re running