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DiGiCo Sound for Eels at RAH
Eels are a band renown to be in an almost permanent state of flux, with the total number of band members appearing in the line-up over the years reaching that of the size of a small orchestra. It was probably fitting then that Mark Everett, better known as E, acquired the services of a four-piece string section to accompany him and other members of the band on stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Although the Eels maybe a constantly changing conundrum, the quality and consistency of the mix required at both front of house and on stage is something that sends shivers up the spines of sound engineers everywhere.
Kevin Madigan, monitor engineer for the band and DiGiCo D1 convert, explained the situation: “The guys are quite precise about what they want in their monitors and the main thing is consistency from night to night. If you can get that right you’ve got your problem solved.” Madigan, who has been working for the band since May 2004 on a fairly constant tour across most of the world, is a recent convert to the D1 after playing with a D5 owned by Jon Lemon. “I love it, you can really give the guys the consistency they want. Everyday I start off from a good point. Little tweaks are needed, but I am not coming in and having to deal with different consoles everyday,” Madigan explained.
Not one to do things by halves, Madigan bought his own D1 through his company, EQ Audio, and tours it with the band. “The Eels is definitely the most pressure monitor gig I have ever had,” he said. On the current show, Madigan has to deal with around 30 open sources, mostly acoustic, making feedback a real possibility. “With the analogue consoles, all the channels were open all the time because it was so much work to organise mute groups on the different desks. Now, with the DiGiCo, snapshots are used for different songs. What isn’t being used gets shutdown, and it makes the whole stage a lot more stable,” he said looking relieved.
The stable stage and the recent conversion of the strings to in-ears have also made life a lot easier for FOH engineer, Josh Paul. Paul, who has been working with the band for about three years, has a CV that includes many an artist that could be described as ‘difficult’, and the Royal Albert Hall with the acoustic band at rock levels easily fits into that category.
Paul is also a recent DiGiCo convert, after using and being a fan of analogue consoles his entire career. “At the beginning of this year we came over to the UK and things went really well. In the middle of the run, it came up that we were going to do a multi-track board feed to a hard drive recorder. The problem is, I don’t have time to run 32 direct inputs to a hard drive recorder and then mess with it all day, so we came up with the idea to use a DiGiCo desk,” Paul explained.
Madigan’s links to DiGiCo convinced Paul to also swap to a D1. He was so confident about its ease of use and capabilities that, without even touching the desk, he sat on a plane from London to LA and read the manual, happy that there would be able to just get off the plane and go. But on load in at the first show in the US, Paul was presented with a D5. The demand for D1s had been so great, there wasn’t one available and a D5 was the next logical choice.
“Looking at the desk I thought to myself: I don’t know how to use this thing, it’s going to be a total trial by fire,” he said. And to make matters worse, the following night in Portland, the band arrived five hours late for load in. But even with only a two-hour setup time the mix came together straight away. “From that point on, I have been a great supporter of the desk,” he said enthusiastically. “Once you become familiar with the interface it’s so easy to use. I couldn’t imagine doing any shows without it now.”
28th October 2005
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