KINROSS, Scotland – The 17th edition of the T in the Park festival drew crowds once more with music from some 150 bands. For the Radio 1/NME stage, EFX Audio supplied the with Midas Digital front and back with two XL8s at FOH and a PRO6 and PRO9 on monitors. Numerous bands, including Pulp and Foo Fighters on the main stage, also arrived with their own Midas digital setups.
"One development from previous years was that I don't think we met an engineer who had never seen Midas Digital before," said Steph Fleming of EFX, who also ran the Radio 1/NME stage last year.
As in previous years, EFX set up the two XL8s in tandem, so that guest engineers could listen in to the preceding band and get a feel for the EQ, as well as lining up gates, compressors, reverbs and overall functionality prior to line-checking their own band.
"We have a good degree of familiarity and experience with these systems," says Fleming, "and this year we took it just a little further again."
Along with the consoles, EFX deployed 192 channels of 431 mic splitters to ensure they were never short of inputs and outputs while a dozen 451 I/O boxes provided links to FOH, stage left, stage right and the drive for the monitor system.
"It provides such great flexibility in the patching possibilities," said Fleming, "and means we are able to accommodate all of our guests' signal requirements." Fleming also credited Midas' support.
"It was great," said Friendly Fires' engineer, Richard "Bars" Barling. "It looked and sounded like an XL4, but I love the digital functionality, like how easy it is to have channels come to you rather than sloping through layers, as with some other consoles. I found the gates very accurate and the compressors very transparent, and the onboard reverbs and delay both sounded great. I also spoke to the outside broadcast guys and they commented on how good the Midas splits sounded."
Bars requested an XL8 for use as a demo console at the iTunes festival the following week, on the chance that he might be taking a PRO6 on the road for the band's first arena tour, which kicks off in November.
Mat Acreman, a regular user of the Midas Heritage 3000 desk, mixed Welsh rock band Kids In Glass Houses on the Sunday night of the festival.
"I thought the POP(ulation) Groups were a great feature and really helped in getting mixes together in a short festival line-check," said Acreman. "I loved the analog feel and sound of the XL8. Everything was within arms' reach and where I expected it to be.
"I knew the XL8 was going to be a great desk as soon as I turned up the first vocal fader," Acreman continued. "It had that great Midas sound from the off. It is definitely my favorite digital console both sound and functionality wise, and I can't wait to use it again."
Along with T in the Park, Midas digital consoles also were part of Knebworth's Sonisphere festival the same weekend – there, every headliner was mixed on a Midas console. Britannia Row Productions supplied two PRO6s, a PRO9 and an XL3 as well as an analog Heritage 3000, while Metallica used their own XL8 at FOH.
For more information, please visit www.midasconsoles.com.
