A concert hosted late last year at the Saban Theatre in Los Angeles was actually much more than it appeared. Featuring singer/songwriter Gino Vannelli, who’s sold more than 10 million records over the span of a dynamic career, the performance was also mixed and recorded for broadcast on PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) as well as a new DVD/CD entitled Live in LA, released in May.
Working in tandem with recording/mastering engineer Nick Moon of Tone Proper Audio and monitor engineer Matt Greco, Ross Vannelli (Gino’s brother) produced the event, with the lead performer backed by his veteran band. Vannelli, who also handles front of house mix duties and management for Gino through his company, COA Productions, considered several options to meet the needs of the project before going with a turnkey approach from Roland Systems Group.
Vannelli already had familiarity, as an early adopter of the M-480 digital console, flagship of the Roland V-Mixing series. “I’ve used it in many venues,” he notes, adding that what first strikes people about the console is its compact footprint. “Sometimes a venue will have a huge in-house console. I’ll set up, get my sound check going, and they can’t believe not only how small the unit is, but how good the EQ and compression sound. At the Saban Theatre event, I only had to kill (occupy) maybe eight seats total to handle our whole rig.”
Greco, meanwhile, utilized a M-380 V-Mixing digital console for his mixes. “When we set it up, and everyone’s wearing their in-ear monitors, we’re ready to go in 10 minutes,” he says. “When I have the M-380 in ‘Sends On’ fader mode, all I have to do is hit one of the guy’s mixes, find the fader where his input is, and turn it up. It’s literally a 2-step process, so if a band member needs adjustments in their mix, they’re very easy to dial in.”
Greco also likes the console’s onboard FX, specifically the built-in Lexicon reverb plug-in for Gino’s vocals. The entire band runs direct with no instrument amplifiers on stage. While the result is an extremely clean source for FOH and monitors, he adds: “I do have to be more conscious and careful about adding space back in (with reverb), I’ve also worked a lot with our guitar player (Jay Koder) and our bassist (Damian Erskine) to get some solid amp simulators to add in ‘air,’ so it’s not just a straight DI signal going into the IEMs.”
Cohesive Package
Audio for the show was distributed using a Roland 3208 (32-input/8-output modular rack) in tandem with S-4000 modular digital snakes and two S-1608 compact digital snakes, with all key components on Roland’s proprietary REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication) network that supplies low-latency, high-quality digital audio transfer. This included dual Roland R-1000 48-track recorders/players (one served as backup) that Moon deployed to capture the show, to be mixed and mastered in stereo and 5.1 surround sound.
The R-1000s integrated seamlessly via a REAC MADI Bridge into the rest of the rig, providing the reliability and redundancy he was seeking. Another benefit of the R-1000, Moon says, is its lack of complexity. “I’ve got Pro Tools HD and could have used that, but with a stand-alone recorder, the operating system’s only purpose is to run that unit,” he says. “It’s stable, you don’t feel like you have to monitor it at all times and it’s compact – just four rack spaces. We basically had R4 distribution for the REAC, and split it so both recorders were getting the same input stream.”
He adds that a laptop/software solution may have provided more flexibility, but notes: “I can literally plug in the R-1000, put the snake heads wherever I want, arm the tracks, hit record and there you go. I wanted stability and I wanted to capture the show as efficiently and reliably as possible.”
