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Mama Stone's Relocates to Exeter with New Soundcraft Si2

$Mama Stone\'s Relocates to Exeter with New Soundcraft Si2$

When Wendy and Jonathan Joseph were running Mama Stone's live music venue in its former location, they contacted Tad Barker at Tickle Music in London to provide a rental studio to a standard that would enable Wendy's daughter - the singer Joss Stone - to record an album.

But Mama Stone's duly became a victim of its own success. When the club's popularity outgrew its location in Wellington, and the council started to receive noise complaints from neighbours, the Josephs sought to upgrade the operation, moving to larger premises in the centre of Exeter.

This time they approached Tickle Music for a fully-installed public address system, including a Soundcraft Si2 digital desk. Once again the technical infrastructure needed to be equal to Joss Stone's performance criteria, since she would be opening the new venue.

Wendy and Jonathan spent in excess of £500,000 converting the 275-capacity venue in Mary Arches Street, with its hand painted colourful, New Orleans / Cuban style entrance and colonial style, ‘shabby chic' interior redolent of New Orleans' Bourbon Street.

Since Jonathan would also double as one of the resident sound engineers he was very particular about the digital desk. "We had been looking at another console until Tad introduced us to the Si2," he said. "As it incorporated newer technology, we immediately made the decision to go with it."

Tad Barker based his recommendation on the desk's speed of access, its onboard FX and ideal footprint. "We were talking to Sound Technology (Soundcraft's UK and Irish distributor) at the time and thought it was a perfect time to try this desk," he said. "The master channel is great - and very quick." He also recommended it on the strength of the desk's 35 BSS Audio 30-band graphic EQ's and Global Mode feature, enabling each encoder to control the same function for each channel. This means that the encoders can control all the mic gains, pans or a chosen Aux bus, making it very useful for creating monitor mixes.

Jonathan Joseph says it was the best decision he could have made. "Ease of use was a major consideration as I wasn't familiar with the board - but sonically it is an excellent desk. Everything is inline and the processing - the Lexicon FX and BSS graphics - is outstanding."

In fact the Soundcraft Si2 is designed for both touring and fixed installations and its 64 inputs and 24 bus outputs make it a perfect choice for venues such as Mama Stones as well as churches and theatres. Based on the intuitive control topology of earlier digital consoles, Soundcraft have made operation even easier while delivering the exceptional sound quality noted by Jonathan Joseph. He can also make quick transitions on the desk and make fast adjustments to the gain structure, to suit each act, on the fly.

With its own house band, the new venue merges a laid back music vibe with high class food and drink in the true spirit of a cabaret dining club - with a view to promoting local talent. The early signs are that they have hit on a successful formula with the dining club concept.

Young artists are already able to improve their writing skills while Mama Stone's vocal tuition programme, run by their head vocal coach Kat Savage, offers basic, intermediate and advanced tuition.

The next stage will be to add a full recording facility above the live room upstairs for young budding local artists - as well as enabling Joss to continue her recording activities - close to home.

In fact no stone has been left unturned at Mama Stone's! For artists who show sufficient promise, the venue will offer production deals with a view to showcasing them to the industry.

In picture: Jonathan Joseph

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Mama Stone's Relocates to Exeter with New Soundcraft Si2

5th January 2010

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