MIDAS ELECTRIFIES THE PROMS
The BBC’s Electric Proms season saw a veritable feast of Midas consoles arriving at the Roundhouse in Camden, to be used for most of the headlining acts.
The audio equipment for the Roundhouse shows, which included an XL8 Live Performance System at front of house for The Streets, was provided by Britannia Row.
“This is the best sounding console available, without a shadow of a doubt,” says the band’s engineer Shan Hira, who first used an XL8 at this summer’s T in the Park with the Chemical Brothers. “You can’t drive other digital consoles like you can this, especially with the dual gain feature, which gets you where you want to be. You can really use it like an analogue console, but it was also great being able to save our settings from rehearsals, and I’ve ended up with a scene for each song, which I didn’t think I’d go for at the outset.”
Hira also took advantage of the XL8’s onboard dynamics. “I’ve plumped for the vintage compressor on most things, and I’m also using the gates, some Klark Teknik effects and one of the delays,” he says.
This was far from the only Midas console in attendance; arriving in the middle of their UK tour dates were Oasis with Britannia Row’s other XL8 on monitors and an XL4 at front of house, while H3000s were used FOH for band and vocals for Burt Bacharach, plus the Saturday Night Fever show featuring the Bee Gees’ Robin Gibb and special guests.
Photo caption: Shan Hira, The Streets’ FOH engineer, with Midas XL8 at the Electric Proms
ENDS
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Editors' information:
Midas live performance mixing consoles have been used by the world's most demanding sound engineers, performers and rental companies for three decades. The company strives to raise the standards of sonic quality through its programme of continual research and development, implementing new control functionality and user-friendly desk operation to anticipate and accommodate the ever-evolving needs of audio professionals who specify Midas consoles for their major tours, festivals, international events, broadcast projects and prestigious fixed installations.
Klark Teknik was founded in 1974 and in the years immediately following, their innovative approach to design and development allowed them to introduce some truly groundbreaking designs. Klark Teknik was responsible for one of the world’s first digital delay and digital reverb units, however it was their concepts for equalisation devices that really changed the world of professional audio resulting in the DN370 and the famous DN360. Today Klark Teknik continues to bring innovation in design and dedication to engineering and sonic quality in both the analogue and digital realm of signal processing, with the Square ONE and Show Command ranges updating the brand.