Roland Systems Group on tour with Toyah Willcox!

Posted on Sunday, November 13th, 2011

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!