Europe’s most prestigious music awards, the DMA ECHO Awards, has taken place on June 6, 2004 in Berlin’s International Congress Centre (ICC). About 5.8 million viewers watched the ceremony – time delayed – on TV. The ceremony was first held in 1992 and is beside the Grammy the biggest international award. The DMA, the cultural institute of the phonographic economy, honours the most outstanding and successful national and international artists every year as well as national enterprises and managers of the music industry.
The sound reinforcement was handled by PROCON MultiMedia AG, Hamburg. The listed company is a full service provider for the media, entertainment and event industry. PROCON is based in 10 countries with its own 14 subsidiaries and 10 cooperating and strategic partners. With a network covering all of Germany, PROCON markets light-, sound, camera- and presentation technology for events as well as film-, theatre- and TV – productions. Consulting and support technical professional staged events and TV – productions complete the service. Apart from the important German media locations, there are offices in London, Paris, Vienna, Stockholm, Zurich and Brussels.
One of the significant challenges was that part- and full playback bands played next to live bands. There were two stages set up to guarantee a smooth flow, altering between live and playback bands. While one was set up in the backstage area the show continued on the other stage.
2 consoles covered FOH and the monitor mix, so that each stage had its own FOH and monitor mix console. The FOH/Monitor was one unit.
Horst Hartmann was the responsible sound engineer for the monitor mix. He worked with a PM1D as main console for 5 live bands. Each band was assigned a scene as they only played one song each. Together with floating down fills and wall mounted side fills 36 wedges were utilized. The monitor mix was different to the FOH mix as it had to access both stages. The PM1D’s recall functions were the crucial factor for the assignment.
The other mix was assigned to Dirk Binger. He worked with a DM2000. The console covered the part playbacks as well as the sound reinforcement for the presentations and performances.
PROCON specializes in technical integrated complete solutions. The project managers are trained in every aspect of event technology. They offer all standard devices and a big pool of specialized equipment as well. In their work shops they accomplish project specific developments on a daily basis.
 “This is categorically essential for our company: We do not want to get upset about the deployed technology. The technical side of a project must work immaculately.” ( Klaus Rahe, PROCON AG’s sound reinforcement manager) |
The company demands a high-end performance from the appointed technology and does not compromise at all. Reliability and quality of the equipment used have the highest priority. Otherwise TV shows like “Wetten, dass …?!”, “The Dome” or the ECHO awards would not act up just as trade fair support for international operating companies as Daimler-Chrysler, General Motors or national and international concerts and tours and performances of Sarah Brightman, Peter Maffay or David Copperfield to name a few.
For years we successfully worked with Yamaha products. The digital consoles PM1D, DM2000 and DME32 have been used in various different events. So far, there haven’t been any failures. The consoles live up to the daily strains and demands and complete their tasks brilliantly.
Furthermore, the consoles are set up user friendly and offer uncomplicated and flexible working. As we have been working closely with freelance engineers for years, it is important that the engineers know their way round the consoles and like working with them. So the incredible high acceptance of Yamaha consoles under sound engineers is a major factor.
