PM1D and DME64N on Music Farm, Italy’s first musical reality show
With a victory by Sardinian singer Pago (who won the 150,000 euro cash prize), the third edition of Music Farm, Italy’s first musical reality show (aired in prime time by RAI Due) recently ended. The twelve contestants fought it out note after note, singing Italian pop hits with the backing of a top-class band led and conducted by Fio Zanotti, and lived side by side in a comfortable “loft” for the duration of the 7-week show.
From the Loft, where they were under the watchful eyes of millions of spectators nationwide night and day (thanks to the special infrared cameras), once a week the contestants travelled to the Milan studio in which they performed live with songs chosen by the show’s producers, with the support of an impressive audio system supplied by Backstage PA of Mariano Comense.
On the studio stage, the 20-plus band had twin mics on six of the string section and three more mics were strategically positioned in the audience for on-air ambient sound. All the musicians had stereo headphone monitoring facilities and there were two wedges on stage for the singers, many of whom also used in-ear-monitors. The studio had a small line array dedicated exclusively to reinforcing music and vocals, whereas a large number of point-source speakers throughout the studio reinforced the speech mics.
Alessandro Roseo, head of audio on behalf of Backstage for the show, described the outlay of hardware: “As well as three Yamaha PM1D – one for sound reinforcement, one for the monitoring and one in the control room mixing the music for playout – we also installed three recently purchased DME64N. We found them extremely powerful flexible units – as well as handling the orchestra’s monitor signals and integrating the playout console, they also had the job of handling part of the signals shared by RAI and Backstage, such as the various external contributions, which included links with the Loft, with the various editions of the newsreels and several afternoon TV programs. In the studio, on the other hand, they were used to handle graphic equalizers, delays and all speech.”
One of the DME64N units was also the basis of the communications between the audio control rooms, the bandleader and Roseo’s portable set-up, ensuring (via the Yamaha GPI system) constant interaction, a fundamental aspect on live TV shows.
As far the PM1D systems were concerned, Roseo added: “It was the first time the monitor engineer had used a PM1D in a set-up using 48 aux sends and such a large number of channels, but after just a few hours he was completely at ease and, before the first show, the orchestra was playing after just two hours and we started rehearsals a day early – obvious proof of just how really intuitive the console is!”
The engineer in question - Enzo Federico - has worked on a lot of live and theatrical events as well as frequent TV shows, and enthused: “One fantastic feature of the PM1D is the possibility to select the Recalls – initially, I left everything in Recall Safe, so that I could balance the whole band for each song. Later, I left just EQ, compression, dynamics and gain - freeing everything else, in order that each song had its overall balance - I’d never been able to do that with other desks, and found it really useful.”
The monitor console was really “full”, with 96 channels and 48 aux sends, as well as a matrix used with a monitor added later for the piano, and Federico explained the functions he put to use: “I really appreciated the 31-band EQ and the possibility of having good reverbs from plug-ins such as REV-X. This has become ‘the’ console for me - the others don’t have the same features – for example, with other digital consoles, you’ve got to decide in advance precisely what you want to do and, in the event of having to add an extra channel, the whole system has to be set again, which is rather complicated.”
As well as storing the settings for each contestant’s microphone, Federico prepared an approximate setting for up-tempo and slow songs, then – once he knew who was to sing each song – recalled the corresponding mic and the basic set-up and, when the singers arrived, just had to carry out some last-minute fine-tuning.
“There was no preset show playlist, as performances were based on votes placed by viewers calling in from home, so time was at a premium – I called up the memories, the musicians prepared the sheet music and the song began – this would have been completely out of the question without a digital console!”
“FOH” engineer Giancarlo Pierozzi had already use the PM1D on other occasions and explained the aspects that distinguished its application on Music Farm: “My console was use to mix sound reinforcement for the band, speech mics of the people taking part in the show and numerous in-coming RAI signals – forty-odd channels.”
In fact, Pierozzi divided his PM1D in two, with top and bottom layers on the left and an right-hand side, in order to have all the speech mics on the left and all the music on the right, with all the band musicians separate. “I opted for this configuration because, if there had been any problems with the desk in the production’s OB van - which fortunately there weren’t - our desk also doubled as a ‘back-up’, so we’d have been able to continue the show nevertheless.”
Commenting in detail on PM1D characteristics, Pierozzi added: “It’s a console I really love working on! I particularly like it as a type of desk, its sound and its flexibility. On Music Farm, we had about a hundred small speakers for speech reinforcement – powered by Yamaha amps and controlled via one of the DME64N, which we also used as the system’s crossover. Another advantage the PM1D offers is having 48 faders all on one layer. It also has lots of matrices and numerous other functions – it really offers many possibilities. For example, for Music Farm, I used no less than 34 or 35 auxes!”
Ably supported by RAI musical consultant Gigi Borlenghi, Maurizio Maggi manned the third PM1D supplied by Backstage, in the music playout control room, from which he fed main and backup stereo signals via MADI to the OB van, where the RAI sound team added applause and speech.
An experienced user of the console, Maggi explained, “I’ve got a PM1D in my mobile studio and find it a desk that’s ideally suited to television applications. At Music Farm, we had very little rehearsal time with the singers, because they also took part in the reality show, so we had to program and create memories – indispensable, particularly in situations such as the last evening, when there were numerous guests in the studio as well as the contestants – we finished up mixing third-odd songs that evening!”
Maggi also stressed the fact that it would have been unthinkable to do such a show with analogue technology, adding: “Yamaha regularly provides upgrades for the PM1D, with additional facilities that are always very useful – for example, the new plug-ins include a very tasty multi-band compressor.”
Since Maggi already had in-depth knowledge of the PM1D, the DME64N was the “revelation” of Music Farm for him, as he explained: “I used it for the first time and found it a very compact but extremely flexible products, with an apparently endless amount of compressors, expanders, etc., and it can be used like an outboard unit, connecting it digitally to the desk and ‘inserting’ everything required – in this case, multi-band compressors that are very transparent and ideally suited to television applications.”
