Two nights at the Liquid Room in Tokyo. A fantastic venue that holds a bit over 1000, but has a PA you’d find in most places that fit 20,000. A Midas XL-4 at front of house. Flying faders on the VCA’s. Though I think it may be getting a bit old as the faders didn’t always make it back to the exactly same spot each time. Like you have time to program any automation for a one off show.
Among choices of compressors they have Two 1176’s, 4 dbx 160’s, 6 Channels of BSS Comps, 8 Channels of Drawmer Gates, and 4 Channels of KT Gates.
And to the other side more effect’s and house EQ’s than you could shake a stick at. 2 SDE-3000’s, a PDM-70, SPX-990, SPX-90, a ATL parametric EQ/Compressor and a KT 31 band on the house.
On stage a Midas XL-3 with meter bridge handles monitors. Here we see Ernie at the monitor position. Ernie was with Clair Brothers Japan and did a fantastic job of mixing monitors for the tour.
For about three years I worked at the Maritime Hall in San Francisco. We had the only ATL desks that we knew of in the states. Finally I meet another version of our monitor desk at Club Quattro in Nagoya. ATL (Acoustical Technical Laboratories) distributes or at one time distributed Meyer in Japan. Really good sounding desks, though the faders in the middle were a bit weird on the monitor desk, and Ernie said that this particular model was in the need of some repair.
Today our hotel was on the 3rd floor, a mall was on the 4th-8th floors, and the venue was on the 9th floor of the same building. A large music shop was one floor down from the venue. How convenient! If only more touring was like this!
Front of house in Nagoya, another great collection of gear in a small club (though I really don’t care for the PM-4000). The house engineer saw on our rider that we need more channels of compression than the club has, so from his own collection he brings the Amek/Neve and the Tube Tech shown. Very nice thing for him to do. On the far left you can see the rack I carry with me containing a TC D-2, a TC Fireworx, and a 2 channel SPL de-esser. On top of the rack is the Audiosport Quattro USB Audio/MIDI interface I use to record the shows onto the powerbook and change programs on the D-2 and Fireworx.
The view from front of house during sound check. Hiding in the darkness is an EV MT-4 rig, ready to roar into an area that fits 500 at most.
Bayside Jenny in Osaka…
A PM-3500 tucked in the corner driving a Turbo Sound rig. While still a good set up, not quite as top notch as some of the other clubs. The show was absolutely packed, not fun squeezing through the audience while sick, but somehow I survived the night.
Tonight’s show at Club Quattro in Hiroshima. A brand new club, and they cut no corners in its construction. The club (like many of the others) was on the top floor of a mall, with a music store one floor below.
The room holds up to 500 or so people, but has a pa better then most US rooms twice the size. A 48 Channel H-2000 feeds an Allen Smart C-2 stereo comp for system limiting, XTA;s for processing and a L-Acoustics ARC rig. I remember working at a club of similar size in Berkley, Ca. where I mixed on a 24 channel Soundcraft spirit. Maybe I should move to Japan.
The more I use them, the more I like the Midas Heritage series of desks. The H-2000 (seen here) being my current top choice for front of house.
Audiosquid 