Self-styled ‘odd pop’ band The Hoosiers are playing an extensive array of festivals this summer and their front of house sound engineer Trevor Gilligan is taking his Yamaha LS9 console along to every show as well.
How a front of house and monitor sound engineer, very fond of analogue, switches to digital and in two years explores the entire Yamaha range from the DM1000 to the PM1D… Florent Bergerot’s journey is very interesting; it proves that anybody can move over to a digital console, and challenges lots of the clichés still floating around about the sound engineer personality and the reliability of this new equipment.
The sun shone signalling the start of summer’s arrival and a May heat wave for London. The perfect weather for the Global Day of Prayer held outdoors at London’s Millwall Football Club, New Den Stadium. The event aims to help people of any age apply the gospel and biblical teachings to their every day life. And with a little help from Yamaha, some lightning quick technicians and not to mention a 200-piece choir backed by an orchestra and band that is exactly what some 15.000 happy worshipers encountered.
The Deutsche Phono-Akademie e.V. (German Phono Academy) has been celebrating this year's Echo Award ceremony with a major TV show production. The event took place in mid-February at Berlin's congress centre, the ICC. Echo has been around since 1992 and is the second biggest music prize in the world, after the Grammys. It is awarded annually to the most successful national and international pop artist. The audio technology of the "live on tape" event is a particular challenge for everyone involved, as the TV show, star-studded with lots of top international acts, has to be broadcast with a time shift of 70 minutes. Production is faced with the challenge of providing each and every artist with an environment for their performance that is identical to that of their own concerts.
14 years after the public was first introduced to the Irish dancing of Riverdance, there are still usually at least two touring companies on the road at any one time performing a full theatre production of the show. This year has so far seen tours in the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, China and Taiwan, with a tour in the production’s native Ireland also in full swing. And at the heart of them all are Yamaha PM5D audio consoles.
All Starr tour is currently bringing its lineup to 31 cities in the U.S. and Canada.
This spring, the Eurovision Song Contest took place for the 53rd time. 43 countries took part and 25 made it to the final on May 24th in Belgrade. A huge technical and logistical effort was put into the grand finale of the Eurovision show, which has been run every year since 1956 by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), making it the largest live production TV event in Europe. Just the rehearsals for the entire production took two weeks...
Taking place in the legendary Somerset fields of Worthy Farm from 27th-29th June, the 2008 Glastonbury Festival will see a major ‘first’ taking place, thanks to Yamaha and South West Audio. It will be the first time a major stage at a major UK festival has enjoyed the benefits of 24-bit 96KHz, digital audio from microphone right through to power amp.
Irish vocalists Celtic Woman currently on tour in the U.S. promoting their latest cd.
Having been conspicuous only by their general low profile since the tour to promote their second, eponymously-titled, album in 1997, the avant-garde Portishead have finally hit the road again to support their third major recording… appropriately titled Third.
Talent contests - in a wide variety of different types - are currently one of the most globally successful television formats. And one of the highest profile - the X Factor - has just begun a UK tour with, for the first time, Yamaha digital consoles at both the front of house and monitor positions.
Taking in a wide variety of venues, including five consecutive nights at London’s Shaw Theatre, Boy George spent most of February wowing UK venues on his Songs That Make You Dance And Cry tour.
Accompanying front of house engineer Jimmy Sarikas throughout has been a Yamaha LS9 -32 console, which was not only mixing the auditorium sound, but also doing two completely separate sets of recordings of every show.
Clair/Showco Provides Production for Band's It Won't Be Soon Before Long Tour.
Even festivals equipped with the more conventional analogue mixing desks are gradually moving into the digital
age. This also applies to the W.O.A. Wacken Open Air, popularised by the movie “Full Metal Village” by
director Sung-Hyung Cho.
Fast-rising indie rockers The Pigeon Detectives spent much of 2007 tirelessly touring to promote their debut album Wait For Me. With slots at many of the UK’s major festivals followed by a headlining tour in the winter and another tour booked for May 2008, the band’s following is rapidly increasing, drawn by a unique sound which is mixed in the live environment on a Yamaha LS9 console.
"See What's Driving the Future" was the motto of the 62nd International Motor Show (IAA) at the Exhibition Centre in Frankfurt am Main. The show ran between 13 and 23 September 2007, with the largest automobile manufacturers in the world presenting their latest models and many technical innovations. Around one million visitors came to view the spectacle beneath the gigantic, 257-meter exhibition centre tower.
August 25th 2007 saw 1.2 million people turn the city centre of Essen, in Germany’s Ruhr region, into a giant party as the Love Parade filled the city’s streets with a procession of floats, all with loud PA systems playing the latest dance music.
In Paris, the Fête de la Musique has long been associated with a free Ricard SA Live Music concert. This evening entertainment featuring several groups takes place at Place Denfert-Rochereau in cooperation with Fonds d’Action and Initiative Rock. This year's event sees some major technical novelties - two PM5D, six AD8HR and an EtherSound system!
