Ref: Caroline Moss PR0615
Date: September 2007

MIDAS H3000 ACCOMPANIES FUNERAL FOR A FRIEND ON WORLD TOUR

Funeral for a Friend’s FOH engineer Clem Bennett is using a Midas Heritage 3000 for the Welsh band’s biggest tour to date. The tour began in the UK and Europe in April before heading out to the US, returning to Europe for summer festivals then continuing onto the Far East and Australia, and wrapping up the year with a headline tour of the UK in December, finishing in Cardiff on Dec 22.

Funeral for a Friend have enjoyed a meteoric rise since winning ‘Best UK Newcomer’ in the Kerrang! 2003 Awards. Their third album, Tales Don’t Tell Themselves, reached number three in the UK album charts, and the current tour is being documented by a film crew all the way. Bennett has worked with the band for two years starting with their ‘secret’ 2005 Download set. The Midas H3000 is his weapon of choice wherever possible, and he’s been delighted to find it showing up on festivals and tours where FOH control is provided.

“We recently came off the Warped Tour in the US where I expected a digital console, but I was very pleased to see the main stage had an H3000 provided by Rat Sound for the duration of the tour,” says Bennett. “Those Rat engineers worked very long, hard days for weeks on end and stayed likeable and cheerful. I think they went for a Midas at FOH precisely because it is easy to get a bare-bones mix up and happening in a short time frame, as the H3000 is intuitive to work with, and any engineer who has been around for a bit should already know it pretty well.”

Back in the UK, Bennett has been pleased to find that all the festivals and summer appearances are also Midas-equipped. “The Rip Curl festival in Cornwall had an XL4 at FOH and again, anyone can show up and operate that console,” he says. Meanwhile the band’s main stage performances at Reading and Leeds was mixed on an H3000 provided by SSE.

“The main thing with a Midas desk is how it sounds; I reckon the preamps and EQs sound superior to anything else available in a live console,” continues Bennett. “The XL4's channel EQ is almost transparent. If you have to boost, you're simply adding more of what was already there in the tone of the instrument, rather than sounding like you've messed with the signal.

“One thing I really like about the H3000 though is that it takes up less space, and has less knobs. I go for simple stuff because live, you want quick results and nothing too fancy, you're not mixing an album. At a festival I rarely program VCAs; anything to save time at changeover. I'll also ask for Klark Teknik graphics, because they don't colour the sound and they work every time. I don't like digital graphics, I want to move a fader.”

Bennett typically uses 24-26 channels of the console. “It's meat and potatoes stuff: drums, bass, guitar, vocals, then three or four stereo returns for FX. The latest album has some ambitious arrangements, orchestras and a choir, so we now use a sampler to introduce some of those elements into the mix.”

As the band heads out for the next leg of the tour, again it’s Midas all the way. “For Australia I’ve totally spec’ed an H3000, and in Japan even tiny clubs have XL4s,” says Bennett. “You never have to spec anything there; everyone loves touring Japan… except vegans.”

Contact:
Midas Consoles Benelux
Tel: +32 (0) 2 4797853 / +31 (0) 55 5386688
Email: info@midasconsolesbenelux.com
Web: www.midasconsolesbenelux.com

Dryhire.eu
Tel: +31 55 5383838
Email: info@dryhire.eu
Web: www.dryhire.eu

Photo caption: Clem Bennett, FOH engineer with Funeral for a Friend, with the Midas Heritage 3000

 

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