latest news headlines
D5 Live Tours With Avril
Avril Lavigne, probably best known for her chart success with Sk8ter Boi, is continuing her Bonez Tour across Europe and the USA and Front of House engineer, John Kerns, has been making the most of the DiGiCo D5 Live to give the mix the edgy raw feel that Lavigne oozes onstage.
Kerns, who has only been with the band for a month and a half, has slotted himself behind the console and into the desk setup and configuration of previous engineer Jim Yakabuski who retired from touring. “I had a week with Jim before I took over and did a few shows with him around. This is my first tour actually taking a D5 and using it on a daily basis, but it is extremely flexible and it sounds great,” he said.
Kerns admitted that using the D5 had taken a little getting used to. “I took over the gig with the desk laid out in a way that someone else would lay it out,” he explained. But ultimately the desk’s flexibility had come to the fore once he had spent some time getting to know it better. “Once you have it laid out and configured the way you want it everything becomes incredibly flexible, so it has been more me learning the routing that’s been going on and the reasons why.”
As the tour has progressed and Kerns, working closely with System Tech, Brett Dicus, has learnt the show, the reasons why Yakabuski configured the desk in a particular way have become more apparent. “Obviously, it’s not laid out exactly how I would have it but it is pretty close, so I haven’t had to re-configure it for me. The show was working fine before I got here, so I didn’t see the need to change it,” he continued.
As well as mixing the show, Kerns also records every performance directly out of the desk and into a Pro Tools HD system. “"We utilize the MADI outputs from the desk to track directly into a Pro Tools session, which the band members and management team like for archiving and other mix projects while on the road. To have the ability to do the live show, while having only one set of pre-amps, and track digitally with only one AD conversion is a huge positive for space and budget limitations," Dicus explained. Using the system in conjunction with the desk also gave Kerns the added advantage of being able to ‘virtually’ mix the band without them being on stage, giving him extra time with the D5 to tune the mix to his own ears — something that the skater kids on the tour have certainly appreciated and Kerns has found simplified by using the DiGiCo.
9th August 2005
HEADLINES
news archive
search stories
FOOTNOTE: Select the news type you require in the red band above; this will enable you to see the current news stories from that section
© 1999 - 2012 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories
