The Sony Pictures Television produced series The Sing-Off is hitting the road for its first live tour and Roland Systems Group is pleased to announce their support with an M-480 V-Mixing System for Monitor Position as well as the Roland R-1000 for multi-channel recording and virtual sound check. The popular a cappella TV show tour consists of season 4 front-runners Filharmonic, VoicePlay, and the winners, Home Free.
Bryan Farina, production manager and FOH Engineer for the tour, explains, “I have been fortunate enough to do shows all around the world from the Sydney Opera House to the Hollywood Bowl. The V-Mixing System will help bring consistent sound for the performers of The Sing-Off Tour night after night.”
The monitor setup consists of the Roland M-480 with the S-1608 digital snake. The M-480 takes a MADI split from the Midas Pro1 Console and Klark Teknick DN9650 format converter using the Roland S-MADI Bridge. There is a mixture of Shure PSM 900 Personal Monitors and monitor wedges all being mixed on the Roland M-480 V-Mixer console.
Mixing sound for a wide variety of vocal groups in one night can be tricky. Farina says, “The Roland V-Mixing System makes it easy….we just hit store, save the scene, name it, and hit recall when we are ready to go live.”
Another V-Mixing System component deployed on the tour is the Roland R-1000 Player/Recorder that is used for virtual sound check with the Midas Pro1. Farina configured this by taking AES 50 from the Midas to the KT 9650 format converter, and then optical out to the Roland S-MADI converter into the R-1000 using a Cat5e cable. The R-1000 has an In/Out Patchbay, which allows Farina to configure, name, record and playback the live channels off the REAC A port.
Farina says, “It was really easy. I hooked it all up and the Roland units saw the signals and locked in immediately”. The R-1000 records the shows and then Farina uses it to playback the audio during sound check. The direct outputs go to the R-1000 and then they return to the tape returns on the desk.
“All I have to do is push a button on the tape return which activates the virtual sound check and everything works great,” Farina explains, “I’m ready to tune the room”.
This saves an incredible amount of time from venue to venue. Farina also likes having the R-1000 on hand in case anyone wants to record something on a whim.
The Sing-Off Tour kicked off the 32-city tour February 19th in Verona, NY and finishes March 29th at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, CA.
