Avid VENUE SC48 Powers HammerFall's New Album And World Tour

HammerFall, Sweden's most successful heavy metal band, are back in the studio recording the follow-up to their gold album No Sacrifice, No Victory.
The yet-to-be-titled album is being produced by legendary producer James Michael who has previously worked with Motley Crue, Scorpions and Meat Loaf and is scheduled for release at the end of May 2011. The release of the album will be followed by a 24-month world tour.
Central to recording the album and world tour is Avid VENUE SC48, a standalone, fully portable, live sound console. The Avid VENUE SC48 system is built upon the industry-leading VENUE family of professional live sound systems and provides the same sound quality and clarity with the benefit of being compact for easy portability.
Unlike a significant number of bands and artists that hire equipment for recording or touring, HammerFall took the decision to invest in a VENUE SC48. Pontus Norgren, lead guitarist in HammerFall and also a well-known front of house engineer for bands like Opeth, Twisted Sister, Europe among others, commented: "It's a decision we haven't looked back on. I've been on tour with a lot of different consoles and nothing matches up to a VENUE SC48, the sound and quality it provides is uncompromised. The dynamics on the console are fantastic compared to others in its price range. What goes into the desk comes out sounding just the way. The way Avid systems handle digital sound makes the output sound warm, that's why we feel their systems are the best on the market."
In the studio and on tour HammerFall's VENUE SC48 is linked up to Avid Pro Tools, providing the band with the ability to carry out their own sound checks and monitoring, as well as preparing backing tracks to be played out through the console during the live shows.
VENUE SC48's ability to run up to 24 plug-ins concurrent is something that the band have found extremely valuable. Norgren said" "The plug-ins area in the VENUE SC48 is great, you just choose where you want it to go and pop it in the plug-in page. TDM plug-ins are compatible and there's no fuss, they work straight away. Venue SC48 is very plug-in friendly that was one of our deciding factors for purchasing the console."
The band also praised the console's ability to be linked up to a laptop that's running Pro Tools software via a FireWire connection so that virtual sound checks can be performed. Norgren concluded: "This is a real time saver as we can plan sound checks in advance of getting to the concert venue. I would encourage anyone in the business to try VENUE SC48 as the possibilities it brings are endless."
HammerFall have been using Avid audio solutions since the band was formed in 1993.
(KMcA)