SR/Live Sun, May 11, 2008

Sound Reinforcement/Live Sound | SR News |

Digidesign VENUE Selected for Front of House Duties on Chris Brown Tour

Summary

  • Daly City, CA (February, 2008): Grammy nominated R&B and hip hop artist Chris Brown recently completed a multi-city U.S. tour, which ended just one week prior to his appearance on the 50th Annual Grammy Awards telecast earlier this month. The tour brought fans a broad sampling of Brown’s music, including songs from his latest release, Exclusive.

J&R Audio of Las Vegas, NV, handled the audio production for Brown’s tour exclusively. Rick Camp, a longtime Pro Tools user and J&R’s senior audio consultant, designed much of the tour system around a Digidesign Venue console system’s integration with Pro Tools and its ability to natively run a wide variety of studio-grade TDM plug-ins. Camp also cited the system’s sound quality and ease-of-use, which was essential, given the need to get several operators up and running quickly for the tour.

Working with Brown’s technical crew — FOH engineer Gordon Mack, Pro Tools programmer Doug Saddler, and monitor engineer Chainey Harpe — specified a system consisting of four D-Show consoles to handle both front of house and multiple monitor mixes, including 24 outputs, two side-fills, one subwoofer, a DJ rig, one drum sub, and 18 in-ear monitor feeds.

“As an FOH engineer by trade and a Pro Tools user since 1997, it just made sense for me to recommend using VENUE live,” says Camp. “I had mixed a couple of one-offs on the D-Show about two years ago and fell in love with it. The D-Show software is also very intuitive. Its flow is that of an analog console for the most part.”

The VENUE system’s Snapshot Recall and Virtual Soundcheck capabilities were praised as significant timesavers for the crew. When combined with a handful of plug-ins, the Snapshot Recall enhanced programmability as well as facilitated the recall of intricate moves in songs and scenes during the show. In addition, Virtual Soundcheck gave them extra time to finesse the mix both before and after the show.

“Virtual Soundcheck gives the artist a chance to stand with the engineer at front of house and critique the mix and also the band’s performance during sound check,” Camp explains. “It allows for tweaking the comps and gates for as long as needed without having to have the drummer play. And you get his real show feel… something that most drummers won’t give you during sound check. Plus, you can also tweak the main lead vocal and get it just right before the actual performance.”

Summing it all up, Camp stresses that working with the VENUE system has both reinvented and streamlined the way he’s able to interface with a client, and most importantly, providing them with studio-like precision and automation on the road.