Midas XL8 digital consoles played a pivotal role at three of the UK’s biggest outdoor events of the year as London’s Hyde Park hosted the BBC’s Proms In The Park, BBC Radio 2’s Elvis Forever tribute and Pope Benedict XVI’s Evening Vigil.
The consoles were rented from Britannia Row by London-based System Sound, which has been providing the PA and broadcast splits for The Last Night Of The Proms and other Hyde Park events for 15 years. “This year we had the best sounding system we have ever had,” says System Sound’s Simon Biddulph. “The XL8s contributed to that in a huge way.”
Hundreds of musicians in orchestras and bands, plus singers and speakers, participated across the three events before a combined live audience of over 140,000, with millions more tuning in to the events on radio and television.
Biddulph says, “The dynamics of orchestral pieces means that any flaws are heard, while the range of musical genres in any one night means that speed of operation for the engineers is crucial. The XL8s delivered in both cases.”
In one of the most eclectic assemblages in live performance history, the XL8s processed everything from the spoken prayers of the Pope to the opera-trained vocals of Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, from the BBC Concert Orchestra to 14 year old Britain’s Got Talent star Liam McNally, from celebrated guitarist Brian May to the legendary Tom Jones singing Elvis classics.
Two XL8s were deployed at each of the three events, with one console dedicated to the orchestral performances and the other for all other acts. For the Pope’s Vigil the second console looked after everything from the three priests to the Pope’s own microphones.
Engineers were quick to praise the XL8’s intuitive user-friendly design and singled out the POP(ulation) groups as one of the console’s stand out features, enabling them to work quickly and confidently under pressure.
“The XL8 was quick and easy to use,” says Richard Sharratt, who mixed Proms In The Park. “The great thing about the POP groups is that it doesn’t really matter where an input is, – it’s always instantly accessible.”
Chris Coxhead, who mixed the bands for Elvis Forever and vocals for the Pope’s Vigil expands: “The POP groups and VCA assignment allows you to get to channels very quickly and the ability to ‘park’ stuff in area B means those very important money channels are always available.”
Meanwhile Colin Pink, who mixed the orchestras for Elvis Forever and the Pope’s Vigil, praised the noise floor and seemingly infinite headroom available when mixing more than 90 channels of instruments.
Coxhead particularly appreciated the onboard FX and dynamics. “I inserted the onboard multiband compressor across the subgroups which had the lectern, altar and Pope’s mics so I could reduce the proximity effect if anyone got too close. It worked very well,” he says, not without some relief. “After all,” he explains, “it’s not every day you have ‘Pope’ on your inputs.”
