Four Yamaha consoles used on the popular Italian talent show
In the legendary Studio 5 at Cinecittà that hosted the sets of some of Federico Fellini’s most famous films - after having passed the “exams” during the daily phase of a highly popular Italian TV talent show - sixteen boys and girls sang, danced and acted on the prime-time part of the show (aired by Mediaset’s Canale 5) and competed for the title of winner of the fifth edition of Amici (Friends), a show, created and presented by Maria De Filippi and co-produced by Fascino Pgt and Mediaset.
Madema SpA, one of Italy’s best known contractors in the broadcast and live event sectors, fielded four Yamaha consoles for this important show, but these are just a small part of the Rome-based company’s stock of the Japanese brand, as Massimo Micheli, founder of Madema with his brother David, explained, “We’ve a considerable stock of Yamaha products, including five PM1D, three PM 5000 and several M7CL, which we’re currently using on several key transmissions on RAI and Mediaset channels. For Amici, we took care of the entire audio chain, from the mics to the large in-studio sound reinforcement system and the feed to Mediaset’s up-links, thanks to our many year’s experience and our team of experienced technicians.”
Studio 5 hosted over 2,300 spectators and the show’s director wanted to give the impression of being at a concert, involving the crowd to the utmost. For in-studio sound, two PM 5000 were used (one for the music, the other for speech), whereas monitor work and the music mix-down fed to the playout desk were handled by two PM1D.
At the opposite end of the studio from the orchestra conducted by Peppe Vessicchio, the two PM 5000 used for studio sound (entrusted to Pierluigi Lofrinch, Boris Panichi and Salvo Arnò) were linked, and all the signals from the orchestra desk were fed to the console used mainly to mix the voices, then fed out via various masters and matrixes.
This latter “master” console was helmed by Lofrinch, a sound engineer with a lengthy experience on prose and music theatre productions, as well as in the concert field. He was assisted by Panichi, also responsible for sound mixing in Studio 19, where the day-time shows were staged: “Boris knew all the boys and girls taking part and, on the first shows, when all the contestants participated, it was easier for him to understand who was speaking. I handled all the other mics – the handheld mics and those used by any guests, as well as the contributions fed in to the studio from the OB van parked outside.”
Since there were not sufficient channels on one console for the musical part, some channels (such as pre-recorded tracks and background music) were handled by Lofrinch, who explained the layout of the channels; “We used the left-hand channels for the clip-on mics when they were used for speech, plus all the hand-held mics, the director’s instructions, audio for video contributions, etc., while on the right we doubled up the inputs of the clip-on mics, as they had completely different settings when they were used in the scenes from musicals performed by the contestants. It wasn’t my first outing with the desk and – as well as the useful ‘link’ feature – another characteristic I really appreciate is its great flexibility, thanks to the large number of aux, group and sub-group outputs.”
Although the contestants all had in-ear-monitors, Arnò was also responsible for some floor-mounted monitor enclosures, “Apart from a pre-mix I got from Piero Bravin of the various sections of the band – such as the saxes and trombones – I received all the other signals from the bandstand separately, so the console was in fact ‘full’ - 52 or 54 inputs.”
In spite of the fact that he was using the PM 5000 for the first time, and moreover in a situation in which all the desk’s channels were used, Arnò was very favourably impressed. “The desk seemed very reliable and a function that greatly facilitated our work was its automation – the possibility of recalling scenes – which I exploited a lot, as there were considerable differences between the songs and, especially on the last evening, there were a lot of songs, so we created numerous scenes and this option was extremely useful.”
A veteran sound engineer on Italy’s concert scene, Piero Bravin was responsible for the broadcast’s musical pre-mix and from his PM1D sent a left and right feed of the mix-down of the band and singers to the playout console, where speech and any other contributions were added.
From the splitters in the studio, Bravin received approximately 100 separate channels, and his in-depth knowledge of Yamaha digital consoles enabled him to exploit the desk’s features to the utmost, as he explained, “I’ve been using the PM1D since 2000 - I find it decidedly reliable and definitely one of the most flexible consoles to be found.”
During Fridays’ rehearsals, Bravin listened to the original versions of the songs on the play-list and the versions recorded in the rehearsal room, programming the most suitable settings. He continued, “After doing that, I prepared a series of memories, choosing the reverbs, echoes, etc. Then, when the band arrived, I just had to fine-tune the memories. At dress rehearsals, I gave the settings the last tweak for the ‘live’ show on the Sunday – having a reliable console’s was fundamental in a situation like that.”
In spite of the desk’s automation being amply exploited, during the contestants’ performances, Bravin was always ready to intervene manually to compensate for their inexperience. “This is possible with the PM1D too!”
Before taking his place behind the PM1D monitor console, Arturo Pellegrini went into the rehearsal room with the band’s rhythm section, which recorded some backing tracks in various keys, as nobody knew who would eventually sing each song during the show until the last minute.
In the studio, the band’s monitoring was all via headphones – there were some monitor enclosures on the stage on which the contestants performed, but these were in fact controlled from the analogue console used to control the PA. Pellegrini explained his console’s set-up, “I handled the monitors for the band and the contestants, using all the desk’s 48 feeds: the first sixteen were in fact pre-mixes for all the rhythm section, which was partially independent, as the musicians had asked to be able to regulate any click tracks and rhythm tracks personally, with different settings according to each song. Then there was a feed for each section of the strings, another different one for each section of the brass players, plus three for the background vocalists. The other included eight stereo in-ear-monitors for the contestants and a left and right for Maestro Vessicchio”.
A long-standing Yamaha user, Pellegrini explained that, even if the set-up was quite standard, the console’s automation played a fundamental role: “Since they weren’t professionals, the boys and girls often needed changes in the ‘balance’ of what they listened to - something to keep them on track.” When dancers sang, they obviously had a good sense of rhythm, but sometimes had trouble keeping on-key, so I tried to help, letting them hear what they were able to follow best.”
Due to this, Pellegrini created numerous memories – an incredible 280 by the end of the last show! “The PM1D was an enormous help for this work, thanks to its great selectivity, ensured with the automated recall of the various functions of each channel, offering exactly what’s needed for each channel – for example, changing a channel’s ‘pre’ or ‘post’ feed, because in a certain song I had to emphasize a particular instrument for the singer, didn’t influence any of the others at all. The Recall Safe feature and its enormous memory capacity are really priceless facilities.”
