MIDAS DIGITAL CONSOLES MAKE T IN THE PARK
UK - MIDAS digital consoles delivered a rock solid sound foundation at this year’s rather wet and muddy T in the Park festival, Scotland.
As the rain fell in sheets, bands including Snow Patrol, Florence and The Machine, The Stone Roses, Kasabian along with hundreds of other acts kept things lively and upbeat on the a disused airfield in Balado, Kinross-shire.
Ensuring sound quality on the Radio 1 / NME Stage was Scottish rental company EFX Audio, headed up by engineer Steph Fleming, who supplied two MIDAS XL8s and a PRO2C at FOH, one PRO6 and one PRO9 on Monitors.
Working alongside Steph on the Radio 1 / NME Stage was MIDAS’ Jason Kelly: “I think pretty much every T in the Park headliner used MIDAS,” explains Kelly. “Two Door Cinema Club brought their own MIDAS PRO2C, however almost all of the other acts including David Guetta, Professor Green, and Swedish House Mafia, used the house MIDAS XL8s.”
Over on the Main Stage, a raft of headline band engineers bought along their own MIDAS consoles, many supplied by Britannia Row, including: FOH Engineer Robbie McGrath with The Stone Roses; FOH Engineer Marc Carolan with Snow Patrol and Ian Laughton FOH for Florence & the Machine. “The console really suits Florence;” says Laughton who is currently using a MIDAS PRO9. “Her show is very musical, with lots of dynamics and the PRO9 enables me to make her sound exactly right. Features like the POP(ulation) Groups are so intuitive. Florence does a lot of running around the stage, alternating between singing and talking. With the PRO9 I can assign her vocal and immediate FX to the right hand side of the desk (Area B) and my assistant can pan her mic away from the PA and or take her FX off while I mix the band on the left hand side of the desk (Area A). It’s brilliant.”
Also touring their own MIDAS PRO2C and PRO2 consoles are Noel Gallagher’s Flying Birds’ FOH and monitors engineers Antony King and Nahuel Gutierrez respectively. They adapted the original setup from their recent arena tour, which used XL8s, to fit the relatively small footprint of the PRO2C FOH and PRO2 on monitors for the festival season: “With a 26-piece choir from the Crouch End Festival Choir and Hertfordshire Choir, as well as a brass section, both XL8s were pretty full on the Arena Tour,” explains Gutierrez. “Out of 96 channels I was using 93 and out of 48 outputs I was using 47. For the summer festivals, where we are sometimes third on the bill, we transferred the show onto the PRO2C FOH and PRO2 on Monitors. This meant we could roll up, do our set, pick up the PRO2C and PRO2 and go; fantastic!”
Photo: MIDAS consoles dominate FOH on the Radio 1/NME Stage at T in the Park