Poland celebrates Woodstock 40 years on with Midas and KT

Poland celebrated the 40th anniversary of Woodstock this year with Woodstock Trainstop 2009 – the 15th such festival to be held in the country. The free concert was attended by 420,000 people, and the main stage was entirely equipped with Midas, with both analogue and digital consoles provided.

Taking place in Kostrzyn on the Polish-German border, rental company Fotis Sound provided a Midas XL8 and XL4 for front of house, with a choice of PRO6 and H3000 on monitors, a Venice 160 for communications and a Klark Teknik DN9696 high resolution recorder, which was used to record the Saturday Anniversary Concert attended by original Woodstock founder Michael Lang.

Special guests at this year’s festival were Nobel Peace Prize-winner and former president of Poland, Lech Walensa, and Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first prime minister of Poland post- 1989. Among around 40 international bands performed, with Fotis Sound’s front of house manager Przemyslaw Naguszewski and monitor manager Marcin Matysiak taking care of the main stage lineup.

“We made a general assumption that all bands would use the XL8 system, and there was only one exception – a band who wanted to use analogue, so the XL4 was for them,” says Naguszewski. “The XL8 is a great system. For a lot of sound engineers at Woodstock this was the first chance to use an XL8. After a short explanation everybody went on to use it with no problems at all. I have to say that I’m a huge fan of this amazing console.”

Fotis Sound’s Przemyslaw Naguszewski with Midas XL8 at Woodstock Trainstop, Poland

XL8 at FOH, Woodstock Trainstop, Poland

PRO6 on monitors, Woodstock Trainstop, Poland

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 and Creative ranges updating the brand.