CONCERTS & TOURING
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A Saturn-like planet at the centre of the stage was a showstopping addition
and light-up buttons and keyboards, allowing movement and interest in all parts of the set.” A standout feature of the tour’s set design was the Saturn-inspired planet that took centre stage throughout the performance. “The largest request by far was the centrepiece – a gigantic planet, including planetary rings,” adds Rees. “LED Creative provided the construction of the rings, plus a fully wireless pixel LED solution along with them. The piece was all on a single motor so it could drop down into the middle of the stage.” “The final header piece has to be one of my favourite elements of the show,” Rees emphasises. “Its versatility is incredible, having over 300m of Flex-It, and the lightbox around the edge is so bright it was producing a beam of light. All in all, it’s a super-impressive set piece.” INTERGALACTIC ECOSYSTEM “Ed Coleman, our video director, had a really clear vision,” Siegel continues, “he
wanted to be right in the middle of everything, directing from the front of house (FOH), while being surrounded by the audience. It all had to be seamless – both creatively and logistically.” To ensure this, Coleman needed to have visibility on every angle through monitors and multiviews, all while being right out there with the crowd. This ultimately led 80six to select Blackmagic Design for the core set-up, known for a holistic live production portfolio that enables the complete synchronicity Coleman was seeking. “The Atem 2 M/E Constellation 4K switcher enabled us to create multiview layouts, which was key for Ed’s FOH needs. I set it up so he could have a 4:3 crop of the program feed alongside the regular 16:9 view – this way, he could see exactly what he needed, precisely when he needed it. Running the Atem 2 M/E Advanced Panel over Ethernet meant the main gear could stay backstage while Ed controlled everything from
FOH – even if it was over 150m away.” Choosing Blackmagic across the board wasn’t just about making things work technically, it also made everything much easier operationally. Siegel stresses that “the fibre system was a big part of that. We had to send video, comms and monitoring signals across the O2, which is a massive venue, and the reliability of their fibre set-up made it possible. We also made sure to build in redundancy by having multiple fibre paths, so if anything went wrong, we had backups ready to keep the show going smoothly.” As with any tour of this scale, there were several hurdles, both practical and creative, to overcome. One of these was lighting. “There were no neutral colours. Every song had its own intense lighting set-up, so keeping the visuals consistent and sharp took a lot of finesse. With Blackmagic’s RCP controllers, I adjusted each camera’s hue and saturation individually, ensuring
What does an audio engineer look for when choosing an in-ear monitor? You need to ensure that there’s a wide frequency response, and for it to be phase correct, to avoid encountering phase issues inside the earpiece. You also need to have a good headroom and dynamic range to be able to control the transient responses of a live mix versus a compressed – or even a vinyl file – which is already packaged very nicely.
Name Jerry Harvey Job title Founder, JH Audio How did JH Audio come about? In 1994-95, in-ear monitor technology was in its infancy, not in widespread use for touring yet, as it is today. I was drummer Alex Van Halen’s monitor engineer, and was presented with a challenge to find tech that would work, so I used my experience in tuning large arena sound systems and engineered the first two-way, custom-fit
earpiece just for Alex. This led to founding Ultimate Ears, which was later acquired by Logitech, and Jerry Harvey Audio following that – which began with building in-ear headsets for private pilots’ communication. What was JH Audio’s involvement in the Glass Animals tour? JH Audio was chosen because of our status in the industry – we’re the premier brand and control roughly 80% of the professional market – making us the industry standard.
LIVE.
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