06/2004
Following their triumphant appearance at the Brits, where they received a lifetime award for their “Outstanding contribution to Music”, there’s been no escaping Duran Duran of late. Since the current tour was first announced the bookings have continued to grow and grow ‐ they’ve had to visit Wembley three times to satisfy the demand for over 100,000 tickets.
Having done a remarkable job at the Brits, providing both the live and broadcast mixes from one console, ‘Snake’ Newton continues to be the man at the Yamaha PM1D front of house. “It’s a desk I love; we dragged a pair of them round the world with Craig David for three months last year and I know how robust the system is. I could see from the damage to the cases they had been abused in air-freight but they never let us down.”
With 46 inputs to the desk there’s plenty to deal with on Duran’, not least a raucous guitar, but there’s little in the way of off-board dynamic control. “I’ve gated everything in the desk, and generally use the desk compressors and EQ. Though I’m not averse to using external devices for specific functions, frankly many are over rated and I’d rather spend the band’s budget on more speakers and delays for better coverage ‐ I feel this is better value for money for the punters than an extremely expensive limiter on the bass mic!”
Britannia Row Productions are providing an EV X-Line system, “a system well suited, to this band and it’s always a pleasure to be looked after by Britrow,” he said.
“Dynamics wise the PM1D covers most things I need to do more than adequately, and it’s a lot easier to stay on top of, being consistent channel to channel and all consolidated in one place.” An important consideration when you’re dealing with a complex band.
“I automate as much as possible, all levels apart from lead vocals, and the Master Fader, which I always run in ‘Safe’ mode, so it’s isolated from the programming. That’s what’s good about the PM1D, it’s physically very robust, and in operation is equally so; there’s no reason for anyone to feel insecure about operating it. I would certainly not be as confident with the alternatives. ”
