Linkin Park use Aviom personal mixing throughout Asia tour
Published: ASIA
ASIA: A recent tour of Asia by US rock band Linkin Park saw the band’s audio techs monitor vocal and guitar feeds through Aviom personal monitors. The concerts, including dates in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore, came at the end of the band’s A Thousand Suns world tour.
Use of Aviom equipment on the tour included drum tech Brad Stonner using an A-16II personal mixer to create a monitor mix for drummer Rob Bourdan, while guitar tech Sean Paden reportedly connected a pair of Audio-Technica headphones to an A-16R rack-mounted mixer to control audio feeds from each of the four guitar microphones housed in two cabinets. The set-up meant that Mr Paden was able to mute individual mics and channels whilst controlling volume.
‘The main reason we purchased the Aviom system was that Sean needed so many options for his monitoring,’ explained monitor engineer Kevin McCarthy. ‘We were going to give him a little mixer but we didn’t want to send all of those mic lines across the stage and we wanted to simplify the process because it was just for him. We went all over the world and there were never any issues or qualms. Everybody definitely liked it more than having a traditional mixing console in front of them, because the controls are simpler and they didn’t have to EQ anything, they just needed to adjust the volumes.’
For each of the concerts, Mr McCarthy was located not at stage-left but underneath the centre-stage area, where he relied on cameras to keep the audio in sync. To facilitate the unusual set-up, he installed an Aviom 6416Y2 A-Net card into a Yamaha PM5D digital console, meaning his team was able to connect a single Cat-5e cable to an ASI A-Net systems interface and then to each of the mixers.
‘The interface with the Yamaha is so nice, it is just that one Cat-5e cable,’ Mr McCarthy concluded. ‘I remember that we didn’t need very much time for the initial setup, I just put the Aviom 6416Y2 A-Net card right into my Yamaha console and the desk immediately recognised the system. I assigned the direct outs to the Aviom mixers and it was a done deal.’