Jessie J tours Asia with Midas
Published: ASIA
ASIA: Monitor engineer Jimmy Nicholson has been utilising a Midas Pro2C live audio system for Jessie J’s recent tour dates in Australia and Asia. This was one of the first outings for the Pro2C in the region, and Mr Nicholson described the console as a ‘game changer in the industry’.
In addition to the main tour dates, the Pro2C was also used for Jessie J’s performance at the Future Music Festival in Brisbane and for an additional headline tour of small arenas, where it was used alongside a Midas Pro6 at FOH.
A Midas XL8 was used for the set-up for a promo gig prior to the start of the tour, which was then loaded into a Pro6 desk for UK dates at the end of 2011. Mr Nicholson found that when importing the show file into the Pro2C, this meant that he could easily replicate it across the globe in a small, easily transportable package: ‘Convincing our production team to ship a Pro2C to the other side of the world was easy – and now they've seen it in action, they want to take it everywhere with us!’ he enthused.
‘The Pro2C met all my requirements,’ he continued. ‘In fact I found the layout a little easier to use than the Pro6, and some of the new shortcut buttons make things even easier than they already were. It's still amazing to think that almost all the processing power of a Pro6 can be squeezed into such a small console. The sound quality goes without saying, and now you can get the sound quality of an XL8 this compact package.’
Mr Nicholson used approximately 38 inputs from the stage, as well as 'shout' microphones to facilitate communication between himself, band members and technicians during the show.
‘I ended up running 12 IEM mixes, one for every band member, plus backline crew and Jessie’s security,’ he explained. ‘In addition I was running an entire shout system from the Pro2C, which when coupled with the Pro6 at FOH for our headline shows, allowed both engineers and backline crew to don IEMs and headphones and carry out a line-check with full back and forth communication on the headsets only. We cleared the stage of wedges and I was running subs for the drummer, keyboard player and a couple of subs per side for side fills.’
Mr Nicholson admitted that ‘from day one with Midas Digital, the VCA and POPulation group system has been the key winner for me. I was more than happy to use a control surface with only eight input faders, as I know from previous experience that once you start using the POP and VCA groups, you only need a few faders to the left of the master section.
‘The ability to patch internal busses to the “external in” and PFL and AFL bus direct inputs of the monitor section meant I could run the shout system from the console, instead of requiring an external solution. The fact that the band could communicate with myself and their techs if they needed to meant that I could concentrate solely on Jessie for the show, and if they needed me I'd hear them “shouting” in my IEMs.’
Commenting on the console’s compact size, Mr Nicholson said: ‘I had a number of people – audio engineers included – come over and ask me if it was the lighting desk. I know it's a cliché, but it's so small you can forgive them. The look of puzzlement changes to disbelief when I explain it's actually a 64 input, 27 bus audio console that sounds like an XL8,’ he concluded.