Happy Mondays Select Avid S3L

For the Happy Mondays' recent tour celebrating the 25th anniversary of their second album 'Bummed', front of house engineer Gerry Parchment and monitor engineer Jasen Hattams pushed to carry their own consoles on the crew's splitter buses. For this they engaged Miles Hillyard at SSE Audio Group for two Avid S3L systems.
Comprised of an HDX-powered processing engine running on-board AAX plug-ins and networked remote stage boxes for up to 64 inputs, S3L's modularity and Ethernet AVB connectivity over lightweight Cat5e cables allowed Parchment and Hattams to carry the package in the back of the lighting crew’s van throughout the tour.
"Initially there was to be no control package at either end of the multicore, as we were in splitters and space was tight," says Parchment.
"This left both Jay and myself with a myriad of in-house analogue and digital desks at the venues. [With Avid S3L] we could achieve a consistent sound and be ready to soundcheck the band in 30 minutes from the time the equipment got onto the stage," he continued.
"We would not have been able to achieve this with any other system."
"My Production Manager loves the footprint," says Hattams. "It's compact, and the less space we take up, the more seats are sold out front—that makes the band and promoter very happy. And I love a lampie carrying my desk!"
A key feature of the Avid system is Virtual Soundcheck, which allows engineers to fine-tune mixes based on previous live recordings. With the combination of Pro Tools and Virtual Soundcheck, it's possible to EQ the room, set up snapshots, and more—all without requiring the presence of the band.
Seamless integration with Pro Tools also enabled Parchment to record the band’s performances—up to 64 channels over a single Cat5e cable. And S3L’s VENUE Link enables control of live mixing and recording/playback setups as one from the console, with track names, snapshots, and much more automatically populated from the VENUE show file.
www.avid.com
(IT)