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Soundcraft Vi6 is Mixer of Choice for iTunes in London
A music journalist, asked recently to sum up in quickfire fashion the great names that we automatically associate with the different decades of rock and roll, ran rapidly through the obvious candidates from the 50s to the 90s — Elvis, Beatles, Sex Pistols, U2, Oasis — before running out of steam when asked about the new Millennium. In the end, with a wry smile, he picked 'iTunes'. There's no doubt that iTunes has changed the way the music business works, and like all great marketing concepts, it's continuing to evolve. At first, it was just a boring piece of software to keep your music in. Then it was a dull-but-necessary means of getting files into your much more interesting iPod. Then — the big step up — it became an on-line music store, but the only on-line store that anyone in the world actually wanted to use, and certainly the only one that bands began to create exclusive content for. And in London during July, completing its transition from geeky music-filing application to achingly hip globe-bestriding music superbrand, iTunes became a music festival.
The idea of a music festival is not new, and this year there are more of them taking place around the UK than ever before, but the iTunes take on the concept proved to be a bit different, involving not a single muddy lake or sodden tent. Each night in July, making for a total of 31 concerts, different artists played at central London’s simply excellent Institute of Contemporary Arts. Some seriously big acts turned up to play over the course of the month, from established names like Paul McCartney and Crowded House, via success stories of recent years like Groove Armada and Amy Winehouse, to freshly discovered talents like The Go Team!, Just Jack and the irrepressible Mika. Tickets for the concerts, which only had a 350-seat capacity, were given away, not sold, although Apple cleverly funded the event by professionally recording each night’s concert (audio and video) and selling it exclusively through iTunes later. XFM also broadcast from the festival and Channel 4 screened video highlights, making it a truly modern multimedia extravaganza.
As if all this didn't give those responsible for the venue sound at the ICA enough to think about, the sheer turnover of artists presented the event's live sound engineers with a challenge familiar to anyone who's worked behind the scenes on festival live sound. "On an ordinary tour, there's a set list, an order to things, and you get time to rehearse, soundcheck and become familiar with the material over several dates," comments a spokesperson for the iTunes festival Production team. "Although we did as much preparation as we could at the ICA each day, that degree of familiarity just wasn't going to be possible with new bands coming in each night.”
In theory, digital live sound desks are a great aid for the production staff at festivals with continually changing performers, because a digital desk can store and instantly recall the on-stage settings for any particular artist which were made at the soundcheck. But in practice, as the Production team are keen to explain, "the user interface on so many digital desks is not quick and easy to use — and speed is the name of the game live. So there's been a lot of resistance among live engineers to bringing in digital consoles." The festival thus began by using analogue desks to handle the monitor and front-of-house mixing, but when Groove Armada played on July 7th, the event organisers agreed to try the Soundcraft Vi6 digital live sound console on the recommendation of Alex Keyser, Groove Armada’s Production manager, with whom they’ve worked previously. The Vi6 has been a big hit with Groove Armada, who are using it on their current batch of UK summer festival dates.
The desk proved a success on the ICA date, so the iTunes festival team contacted Soundcraft's UK distributor Harman Pro UK to see if they would supply them with a Vi6 to use for the rest of the festival. Harman pulled out all the stops, supplying not one but two Vi6 desks, which were then used on FOH and monitor mixing duties for the remainder of the festival.
"There was a six-strong team of engineers on the iTunes festival, and they all got on well with the Vi6," comments the Festival’s Production Manager. "The user interface was very approachable and we were pleased with the sound. If we buy any digital desk in the future, it'll probably be this."
21st August 2007
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