Razorlight seems to be a band that enjoys incredibly hard work. Hardly off the road since July last year, the band has been relentlessly touring Europe, Japan, the USA and Canada, their extraordinary popularity meaning that they undertook two UK arena tours in just five months!
With the second of those tours just completed, the band is about to head back to Europe for extensive dates in Germany and France, while at the same time jumping aboard the summer festival circuit for a range of outdoor appearances, including headlining the Carling Reading / Leeds festivals in August.
While the band is playing big venues this side of the Atlantic, much hard work is still being put in to raise their profile on the north American continent, meaning that the venues are currently still on a smaller scale.
Outdoor festivals, stadiums, arenas, theatres, clubs… this wide variety of venues could make the job of monitor engineer Phil McDaniel from ESS, Mansfield very tough. But fortunately, he has a secret weapon which is making both his and the band’s lives considerably easier - the Yamaha M7CL digital mixing console.
“The band has recently transferred across to using in-ear monitors (IEMs) and so giving them consistency in the monitor mixes is very important,” says Phil. “To get that consistency, we take all our own microphones on the road and it’s also very important to have the same console at every gig.
“Over the past two years we have used many different consoles and the Yamaha PM5D became our desk of choice,” he continues. “But with the variety of venues we’re playing in at the moment, the M7CL is a sensible choice because it’s a physical smaller desk, which will fit in the smaller venues that the PM5D would be too large for.”
The power of the M7CL means that it’s quite at home as a monitor console in almost any gigging situation. And for Razorlight this means anything from tiny clubs up to stadia.
“Some people have been quite surprised that we used the M7CL on the UK arena tour, because they expect to see a PM5D or a competing brand in a higher price bracket,” says Phil. “But the band don’t want to be thinking about the monitoring while they’re on stage. They want to do each gig as naturally as possible. By using the same console on all the shows we can achieve this, especially with using IEMs.”
At some of the smaller US club gigs, there is so little room that the monitor console has to sit next to the front of house console - which is itself squeezed into an area that’s less than ideal. As Phil wryly notes, “At those gigs we don’t have a lot of real estate!”
Yet, odd as it may sound, space is often just as much at a premium at some of the far bigger venues which Razorlight are playing.
“If we’re doing, say, a support slot on a stadium tour, the amount of space that’s left for the support band is tiny,” says Phil. “So having a desk that’s a ‘gig in a box’ with all the inserts and effects built in is very important - there’s no need for any outboard gear.”
However, it’s not just themselves that the band and crew are thinking about. When Razorlight are headlining, the M7CL offers advantages to support bands too.
“The advantage on headline tours is that, when there’s not a lot of room for the monitor console, we can fit everything in but also allow the support band to use the same space, so they can have the best gig possible.” Phil continues. “If we weren’t taking this approach they would be down on the floor, off the stage behind all the equipment and the monitor engineer would not be able to see the band, which would basically be a nightmare for them.”
But as well as its size, the M7CL offers very user-friendly access to all that digital power, as Phil has discovered:
“All the onboard dynamics seem very natural,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned, if I drop in a plug-in I want it to be natural and not to interrupt what I’m doing. The compressors in particular are very good for this.
“Also, the way the M7CL is laid out is very useful because I can see all of the channels at the same time,” he continues. “I don’t have to flip pages to see different inputs and the ‘sends on fader’ section on the display is really useful. The touch sensitive screen is also a real boon. Navigating around the board is really easy and I’ve found the interface to be really intuitive. It’s a very easy desk to use.”
Phil has also discovered that the M7CL’s user interface is remarkably versatile, meaning that it’s simple for both him and a support band’s monitor engineer to both use the console.
“Different engineers can find their own way of achieving the same result, but finding a different route to it,” he says. “You can use different parts of the board to get to the same function - via the touch screen, clicking on a knob or going through a menu system, whichever seems most natural. I’ve found my own way, yet other monitor engineers for support bands do it in a completely different way. That’s a real advantage.”
Overall Phil is very pleased with the M7CL and its supplier LMC Audio - and to top it all, it’s come in well within the tour’s budget, thanks to the M7CL’s competitive price.
“This is a fantastic desk because the value for money factor is so high,” he says. “Even though Razorlight are quite high profile, touring budgets are always tight. I only had a certain amount of money to spend on the monitor system and this console has given me everything I need within the budget that I had.
“I’m really very happy with it - and long may it continue!”
