Red Square Audio

Roland fire up the Deloitte Ignite Festival

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

Deloitte recently returned to the Royal Opera House for the fourth year running with their annual contemporary arts festival – The Deloitte Ignite Festival – this time curated by internationally renowned director Mike Figgis. The three day festival, which takes over every corner of the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden, invites people to listen to opinions, watch performances and films, and view the current trends in fashion and art. ‘Just Tell the Truth’ was the theme of this years’ event.

The Paul Hamlyn Hall, with its magnificent barreled roof and floor to ceiling windows, served as the hub of the festival with a live stage for an eclectic mix of improvisational bands, speakers and dancers throughout the three days. For the second year running, Paul Nicholson of Midas ProSound and Red Square Audio was in charge of the audio for the festival and he chose Roland products to for both the Paul Hamlyn hall and the Linbury Theatre. The Linbury Theatre itself is a modern theatre space within the heart of the Royal Opera House

Specifying the M-480 48 Channel Live Mixing Console for the stage in the hall and the M-400 48 Channel Live Mixing Console for the stage in the theatre, both Roland digital consoles were connected to their respective FOH consoles using S-MADI.

In the main hall, Andy Reeves used the M-480 for monitors and Matt Trigg multi-tracked the whole performance using the SONAR REAC Recording System, a system which when used in conjunction with the V-Mixing System provides a comprehensive hardware and software solution to live recording, mixing, mastering and delivery.

With superb sound quality, powerful functions, expandability and intuitive operation; the M-480 and M-400 both offer 48 channels of flexible audio processing. Built in REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication) allows simple system expansion to other components of the Roland V Mixing System or to other consoles with the addition of the S-MADI bridge.

The resident engineers at the Royal Opera House also asked Paul to spot record where required and he had no hesitation in recommending the use of the Roland R-05 hand held recorder. Four R-05 recorders were used in total – one on FOH and one on the monitors in each of the two halls. After demonstrating the superior sound quality of the R-05 to the engineers by playing an orchestral pre-recording on an SD card through the line array, there was no question about using them throughout the festival.

According to Paul, ‘The Royal Opera House engineers were so impressed with the hand held recorders – they purchased the four units there and then!’

The R-05 has recently been upgraded to the R-26 hand held recorder which boasts six channels of audio recording – as well as other user benefits including onboard editing, a touch panel display and a USB audio interface for your PC.

Download press release: Roland fire up the Deloitte Ignite Festival

Roland Systems Group on tour with Toyah Willcox!

Sunday, November 13th, 2011

Roland Systems Group on tour with Toyah Willcox!

Roland Systems Group (RSG) products are currently touring the country with one of the most familiar faces in British rock – Toyah Willcox. Toyah kicked off the final leg of her autumn tour, ‘From Sheep Farming To Anthem 2011’ at the beginning of October in Southampton to rave reviews and the hotly-anticipated concerts will see Toyah perform a selection of material from her first three albums and a concentration of songs from her 1981 Platinum-selling album Anthem, which celebrates its thirtieth anniversary this year. The concert tour has won plaudits across the internet and social media after its premier in London in June and has delighted audiences and fans throughout it’s summer route of club gigs, theatre dates and large festivals.

Paul Nicholson who runs Salisbury based Midas ProSound and Red Square Audio has toured with Toyah for almost 20 years and is in charge of specifying, supplying, and operating the sound equipment for the Toyah band and her other project The HUMANS. For the UK Toyah tour, Paul specified the Roland M-300 Live Mixing Console together with the Digital Snake and S-1608 stage unit running both FOH and monitor mixes.

The M-300 is a powerful and compact digital mixing console ideal for any event production, offering a substantial mixing capability with 32 mixing channels, L/C/R outputs, 8 AUX buses and 4 matrices. Built in REAC allows flexible system expansion and as part of the V-Mixing System including Digital Snakes, Personal Mixers and Multi Channel Recording, the M-300 provides a scalable solution for medium sized venues, which is also lightweight and transportable for mobile sound reinforcement.

With a hectic schedule of performances over a short period, the Toyah tour needed a system which could load in and out of venues quickly and easily, trying to avoid the problems commonly associated with using ‘hired in’ or venue PA systems such as lengthy EQ’ing and sound checking before the gig.

‘The M-300 and Digital Snake system fits our requirement perfectly. Because there is minimum product involved, it’s very quick to setup and the sound check time is massively reduced which saves us having to arrive early at every venue. In fact, I can fit everything plus microphones, stands, DI boxes in the back of my car without folding the rear seats down, so it couldn’t be easier,’ commented Paul.

For each performance, Paul has left and right coming either from the desk or the stage unit. All band members are on in ear monitoring – the only monitors on the stage are for Toyah herself as she has costume changes and a radio pack would be an issue. There is no backline on the stage as everyone is DI’d. Mixes from previous gigs are used so no real repeat sound check is needed. The M-300 has the capability to allow one of the XLR inputs to be used as a talkback facility to AUX mixers, matrices or LCR, in this instance, used as a talkback mic from the desk to the stage to allow communication with the musicians when necessary.

The excellent sound quality of such a simple setup has been well received by the band and audience alike with many saying it’s the best sounding show they’ve ever been to. In fact, when a new member joined the line-up she was amazed at how quickly she was ready to go. By using an additional M-300 aux output and generic mix to she was able to sound check in literally one minute.

‘The sound quality of Roland is like being in a studio on the stage – the band just love it! When I ask them if they need anything else such as ambient mics – I got a resounding NO!

I couldn’t be happier at the FoH. It’s been a great tour.’

Download press release: Roland Systems Group on tour with Toyah Willcox!