The leading Polish rock band Riverside chose a Midas PRO6 live audio system when they headlined the Metal Hammer 2010 Festival in Katowice, Poland alongside an array of acts including the multi-Grammy award winning Korn.
Audio equipment for the entire festival was provided by Kraków-based rental company Prosound.
FOH engineer Daniel Schindler first encountered the PRO6 touring as a monitor engineer for Turkish singer-songwriter Nil Karaibrahimgil.
“From the first rehearsal for the Nil tour, I was blown away by the PRO6 sound,” he says.
“It sounds like an XL4 without 120m of copper between the source and the board. I’ve been looking forward to using the console with Riverside ever since. I also trained with German Midas distributor Mega Audio, and am proud to be a Certified Midas Digital User.”
Schindler praised the natural sounding preamps and onboard dynamics and FX processing as standout features, as well as the console’s design. “It feels like using the analogue Midas equipment we all love so much.”
“The way of working is intuitive and a step towards the future. Once you’ve worked on it, you start missing that on other consoles.”
Schindler used the PRO6’s pitch shift feature to add second and third sets of vocals to the live mix, supplementing lead (and sole) vocalist Mariusz and recreating the harmonies captured on recordings in a live environment.
While enjoying the analog sound of the console, Schindler is quick to appreciate the digital advantages of the PRO6. “Riverside are quite complex to mix,” he explains.
“Sometimes you need to change the full live mix in just two bars. But the PRO6’s powerful automation makes this simple. The POP(ulation) Groups totally changed my way of working, in a positive way.”
“It makes the access to the right channels even faster than on a big analogue console and gives a great overview of the really important channels. I also like that the VCAs give access to the assigned channels in the same way as the POP Groups, while the Area B is great for channels that always need to be accessed directly.”
Schindler reports the Midas PRO6 also proved its worth in extreme conditions. The powerful screens are clearly visible, even in bright sunshine; “a good thing if you have to soundcheck in Turkey at 2pm under blue sky in 48°,” he reports.
Even a thunderstorm failed to faze the PRO6. “I had to dry it out completely after 5cm of water got in the back of the case; the console continued to work like nothing ever happened.”
Schindler is now looking forward to more opportunities to use the PRO6. “On Polish tours we always use equipment from Fotis Sound in Poznan and they already own a PRO6, so the future’s looking good,” he concludes.
