latest news headlines
Digidesign D-Show Dominates on BRIT Awards’ Punk Stage
The Digidesign Venue live sound environment took centre stage at Earl’s Court, as audio production for the star-studded MasterCard BRIT Awards 2008 became an all-digital affair. Derrick Zieba, the show’s sound designer for the past 20 years, shuffled the artists’ riders and commandeered full proprietary digital mixing setups for the show’s Glam and Punk Stages.
Working with MJK Productions, Zieba had been one of the front-runners in nudging the BRIT Awards live television show into the digital age six years ago, and once again it was left to Britannia Row Productions to fulfill the exacting control and PA requirements.
With Paul McCartney headlining on the Punk Stage (and picking up the BRIT Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music), Zieba had little hesitation in specifying a Digidesign Venue system — the digital desk of choice for McCartney’s (aka “Macca”) long-term FOH sound engineer, Paul “Pab” Boothroyd.
Many of the sound engineers for other nominees and acts performing on the Punk Stage — including FOH engineers Matt Kettle (Mark Ronson) and Chris Leckie (Kaiser Chiefs) — were equally delighted to see a full Venue D-Show mixing console, 16-fader Sidecar extender, FOH Rack, and Stage Racks set up. Zieba also installed VenuePack plug-ins — allowing sound engineers to simply show up with their own session files on USB and iLok Smart Keys and load their preprogrammed show files.
Britannia Row had a number of their own technicians on hand to support any engineers who were new to the digital world, including Josh Lloyd, Dave Pointer, and Chris Morrison (who also took over FOH duties on the D-Show for Rihanna from regular FOH man Davie Kirkwood).
One man who certainly didn’t need any introduction was Kettle, who’s made Venue his system of choice over the past year. With a strong Pro Tools background from the studio world, Kettle says his mission has been to establish a common platform and bring the creative capabilities of Pro Tools from the studio into the live domain.
Working with Mark Ronson (who picked up the BRIT Award for Best British Male Artist) further solidified Kettle’s choice for Digidesign’s Venue system because of the Pro Tools compatibility. “Mark is very ambitious, and he has quite a vintage sound,” says Kettle. “He is also very Pro Tools savvy.”
Canadian by birth and a sound engineer for 15 years, Kettle spent six years with the White and recorded their fifth studio album, Get Behind Me Satan, before working with Ronson.
“I started to see Venue systems being used increasingly at the festivals,” Kettle recalls, “and by major bands such as Pearl Jam, Muse, and Radiohead. I liked the idea of common plug-in architecture. I spent some time (with these bands’ engineers), and having downloaded the Venue [D-Show] software, it was an easy transition to make when the time came.
“Mark is entirely into the desk,” he continues. “Although his set is complicated and requires almost 60 inputs, to have dialed that up from scratch would have been impossible. I brought my own plug-ins, favouring the older emulations, but only installed what we needed.”
Making the file edits necessary for Ronson’s BRITs performance, which was a medley featuring vocalists Adele, Daniel Merriweather, and finally Amy Winehouse with Valerie (nominated for Best British Single), had been simplicity itself.
In picture: Mark Ronson on stage at The BRIT Awards; FOH engineer, Matt Kettle.
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 - 2008 Entertainment Technology Press Limited News Stories
