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Strictly Dance Fever for dbx
John Henry Enterprises’ audio division is using one of their dbx DriveRack units for monitor system management and EQ on the BBC’s ‘Strictly Dance Fever’, presented by Graham Norton.
As the popular Saturday night show – broadcast live - builds up to its shimmying finale, a live band has joined the glitter, glamour and action in Studio TC1 of the BBC TV Centre in West London each week. This necessitates a full 20 piece monitor system plus four ways of hard wired IEMs in the mix, all controlled and processed by the DriveRack. The DriveRack is coupled to a Soundcraft Series 5 console being engineered by JHE’s Jim King.
The DriveRack system consists of a 480 master unit, a 480R remote control, and three 482 slave units, all flight-cased into one tidy on-the-road package – an ideal solution for situations like this where space is at an extreme premium.
The DriveRack 480, 481 and 482 units can be networked with an RS-485 buss allowing full control of each unit on the network from the 480R remote, the Master unit, and a Computer.
King operates the DriveRack – providing everything you need between the mixer and the amps - via its proprietary remote panel during the show, commenting: “It’s absolutely brilliant – you can call up any mix on the desk via the remote. It provides a great space-saving solution for applying some well loved analogue mixing techniques - which would previously have taken two or three racks to achieve.”
He adds that it’s also much quicker and easier to do this using DriveRack, and that the crossover facilities are useful.
The DriveRack 480 and 482 provide a host of processing features including a 31-band Graphic Equalizer on each input in addition to Notch Filtering, and Delay. Each output also has a full complement with Signal Routing, Bandpass and Crossover Filtering, a 4-band Parametric EQ, a classic dbx compressor/limiter, and output Delay.
Using a dbx Drive Rack for the monitor mix is now a standard JHE’s approach to large TV shows featuring a live orchestra and lots of mixes, and the legendary company now has two complete dbx systems.
The DriveRack’s software comes with several onboard presents for using with different types of monitors, allowing the user to take full advantage of their unique acoustic properties. For ‘Strictly Dance Fever’, they are using a mixture of EAW, JHE’s proprietary wedges, Clair Brother’s 12AMs and Funktion One Resolution wedges, plus HK DT1088’s which are a favourite for brass sections. So DriveRack’s versatility has been invaluable throughout the series, flipping between different types of monitors and being able to select their characteristics with a few button presses.
King also likes the fact that you can locate the DriveRack anywhere – at the desk, onstage, wherever - because it’s so portable. On Strictly Dance Fever it usually stays close to the monitor desk, adjacent to the main mix desk – a Yamaha PM5D – engineered and operated by Clive Goodwyn. JHE’s project manager for the show is Robert Harding.
JHE’s has two complete dbx DriveRack systems that are constantly working on indoor and outdoor shows and special events. They are currently mainly used for TV monitor mixes needing a careful balance of precision, power and flexibility.
12th May 2005
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