Badger

Couple of updates….

Posted by Badger under Gigs

Think I finally fixed my stupid image gallery, so I’ve added a few pics from the summer gigs - which I have neglected to write about…too damn lazy :p Anyhoo check out the gig gallery!

Edgar Prais @ The Metro London

Posted by Badger under Gigs

The Metro Club

After a 600 mile drive, we arrived at The Metro on Oxford street for a one off gig. Can’t believe I agreed to drive. Took us 2 hours to get from the motorway to the club…..damn old maps and one way systems!! We arrived with half an hour to spare till soundcheck. The club was a small underground affair featuring a D&B C7 system with a Midas Verona, and the usual outboard of D2’s, KT Graphics and Drawmer / Focusrite dynamics.  Big thanks to Allessandro the house tech and his assistant whose name I never quite caught, who truly made it a white glove experience. Thanks a lot guys!!

We had a 5 piece on stage as opposed to the 7 piece extravaganza that was T In The Park. Christie on drums and backing vocals, Steve on Bass and backing vocals, Kris on Lead guitar, lead vocals and Piano, Adam on guitar and backing vocals, and Claire on Cello, Keyboard and Melodica.

This in all was a far more confident and thorough gig for me, and the band played very well through their half hour set. If only we hadn’t clashed with the Latitude festival, then they would have had a larger crowd, which they deserved.

So another 600 miles back up to Aberdeen / Old Meldrum and the weekend was over. Quick sleep for me, then a drive down to Leeds form my holidays with the kids. 2000 miles in a week is not much fun :p

Belladrum next!!

Edgar Prais @ T In The Park

Posted by Badger under Gigs

Well I made it! First gig at a proper festival. Edgar Prais played the T Break stage at 6:40pm on the Sunday night.

We travelled up on the Saturday, and I handed in the revised tech spec for Edgar Prais and The Sloppy drunk boys, and got the expected response from the stage management, which was “FUCK OFF!” After some compromising and artistic magic with a sharpie, we settled on a workable stage plan for them. It still ended up being about 23 channels, before fx returns. Big thanks to Colin Cassie for his unusual patience

The PA was provided by Dynamix from glasgow, and hats off to the house techs who made my life a lot easier. Cheers guys.  Console was a Midas Verona, with Klark Teknik digital graphics, Klark Teknik gates, and Drawmer comps, TC D2 and TC M ones. System was IMG Stageline mini array, which although looked like a large pile of cheap plastic, actually made a fairly decent noise!

Can’t say I wasn’t a bit apprehensive about Rocking up to unknown gear and doing a quick line check then straight into the gig. A twenty minute turnaround including linecheck is always fun! It was an important one for the Prais boys, but  back to basics, and simplicity because of the amount of channels I had, I got a pretty good mix, which everyone I spoke to seemed very pleased with.

So festival virgin no more. Cherry has been popped finally. Bring on the next one (which might well be Belladrum!)

Tech Specs in the download section

Ellon Festival 2008

Posted by Badger under Gigs

Friday evening saw the setup of CLS’s Logic System Ethos rig again, for the Ellon Festival. We used 3 VA tops , two B2’s and one SB2 per side. Again, lost most of the bass outside the marquee… All day saturday was local groups and soloists singing along to backing tracks, then the Saturday night saw the  arrival of Big Vern N The Shootahs. I did a 6 way monitor mix from FOH for the band, whom all seemed pretty happy with the result, along with the 300 or so punters who turned up to enjoy the gig.

Party In The Parks (And Lochs)

Posted by Badger under News

By Dave Arcari

It wasn’t so long ago that Scotland’s summer festivals consisted of one ‘real’ festival and a handful of outdoor gigs that masqueraded under the festival banner. But in the past five or six years, folks north of the border have gone festival crazy, and a closer look reveals half-a-dozen major festivals and a bunch of smaller events that easily qualify for official festival status.

L-Acoustics, Turbosound, Funktion One and Logic System are the systems of choice on the main stages of this year’s Scottish festivals, with Martin, JBL and Meyer also enjoying visibility at secondary festival stages and tents.

King of festivals in Scotland is T in the Park with two outdoor stages and six tented stages delivering three days of music in July (11th to 13th). Britannia Row will provide main stage audio at T in the Park for the first time. Its proposal spec includes L Acoustics’ V-DOSC and a pair of Midas H3000 desks for front of house sound, along with a mixture of L-Acoustics and Turbosound monitors on stage controlled
via a Yamaha PM5D. Britannia Row’s Roly Oliver tells PSNE: “We have several systems that could handle the festival, but the production manager specifically asked for V-DOSC. I guess because we’re a new company for T in the Park, V-DOSC is a well-known quantity – a new system and a new company might have been
too much for one year! “Many of the bands – such as Kings of Leon – are already clients of ours and we’ll have worked with most of the others at other festivals. The system will have just done Wireless at Hyde Park, so this’ll make it a bit of a run for us.”

Furry Boots 2008

Posted by Badger under Gigs

Furry Boots Rally was a good bit of fun at the weekend. Five bands over 2 days in a Marquee in Clatt (Near Insch). Using Creative Lighting And Sound’s Logic System Ethos VA, with a side of stage mix, due to space and for safety reasons…..
All went very well, but there was a marked drop off of bottom end in the marquee compared to what the tops were managing to do, which was a little disappointing, but not completely unexpected. Double up on B2 and SB2’s next time :p Images in the gallery.

Quireboys @ Moshulu

Posted by Badger under Gigs

Late call for this one, but on Monday I was on Monitors for Quireboys, Dan Baird & Homemade Sin, and Diamond Dogs. First time on the Crest Audio X-Monitor desk. Quite liking the parametric eq on the outputs

Not so keen on the ickle Turbosound monitor wedges, but as everything was running way behind , I didn’t really get a chance to play properly. Hopefully get another chance to try them out properly. I’m assured you can get them loud as!

Yellows On The Broom Completed

Posted by Badger under Gigs

Yellows on the Broom 2008 finished on Sunday night. Was a tough busy weekend, especially as I was full of the cold. Turns out though that being in Monitor land for the whole weekend was a blessing in disguise, as I was next to the Amps - so it kept me pretty cosy. All in all, a successful weekend.

Ten acts per day, over two days, kept us pretty busy with changeovers and what not. I think Aaron was delighted using the Yamaha LS9, as after each band got their soundchecks, all he had to do was recall!. I was busy with cribsheets and sharpies.

Started Site!

Posted by Badger under News

Just started this site to catalogue my sound engineering career, and aid in the quest for new work. There is an active gig schedule, image gallery from previous gigs and some news and bits and pieces as well.