Audio Pro

Dave Wooster is the man in charge of FOH at all of legendary
guitarist Gary Moore’s recent performances. The 2007 tour of
the UK and Europe included the Jimi Hendrix Live at
Monterey theatrical screening and 40th anniversary concert in
London, with Moore a member of the all-star tribute band
alongside surviving Jimi Hendrix and The Experience musicians
Mitch Mitchell (drums) and Billy Cox (bass).

Audio Pro International met up with him at his home studio,
Koolworld, in Luton, UK to talk about the tour and listen to
some of the tracks from the Hendrix show.

Wooster chose a DiGiCo D1 console for the recent tour as
well as the Hendrix tribute. The three-man crew’s road kit
included a DiGiCo D1 Live with a small, 16-way FOH rack
with eight analogue I/Os and eight AES inputs; a Sydec
Soundscape DAW with MADI to HD converter box; plus a
stage rack with 48 inputs and eight returns with an optical
snake linking FOH and the stage. In addition, outboard XTA
SiDD and XTA 428 system processing was also in use.

“I did get a raised eyebrow from Gary when he heard that
we were switching from the desk we formerly used on the road
to the DiGiCo D1, mostly because we already had all our
settings on the old board. I think I eased his fears when he
heard the D1 and realised that we were taking a step in right
direction,” explains Wooster.

A Martin Audio W8LC PA system was used for the tour,
while a Meyer MICA system was used for the high profile
Hendrix show, both provided by UK-based Capitol Sound,
with all of the shows recorded via a ProTools HD 1 system
to 32 tracks.

According to Wooster, the D1/ProTools configuration was a
great help in the pre-tour rehearsals, as he was able to record
the songs at rehearsal and then work out any kinks after the
band left for the day.

“Effects, clean up, dynamics and processing can all be done
after the band goes home. Instead of having them panic
when you are stop/starting in between songs during the
rehearsal. So, once you have a clean take you can work on it
for as long as you like after they are gone,” he states.

And any fears Wooster had about using the digital board
were extinguished early on as the D1 was seamlessly
integrated into the tour. Indeed, he feels the push-button
playback and easy flip back to recording mode of the console
makes his job easier by giving him head start to each show.

As such, each night he was able to walk into a venue,
and within 15 minutes of setting up the desk, was able to
play back the previous night’s recording, which gave him a
good representation of how the system would perform
during the show.

This proved to be a phenomenal tool as recording the
rehearsals allowed him to spend time knowing that the D1’s
gates and comps were all dialled to his liking, and any
reverbs and effects that were in place were working properly
for each song.

“When mixing the show in the room, you find yourself not
worrying. When you go to the next scene you know that the
starting point is correct, so any level changes – a lift on a
snare drum, a push on a guitar on the start of the song or a
loud vocal start – to some extent, all those settings can be
made so the snapshots start at the beginning of the song.
Gone are the days of having to look across 24 faders on a
small set up and worrying ‘what do I have to do next?’”

As such, he gained greater confidence in the system as he
did not have to bother with racks, MIDI commands or
scene changes. With a push of a button the board was ready
to go with each song, and at that point he was also able to
test how each venue’s acoustics would react to Gary’s loud
stage volume.

“Gary’s Marshalls are loud. It’s not unnecessary volume.
That is how he generates his tone. It is just very loud, so the
stage volume coming out to the house is also very loud.
Therefore, if we were in a venue where we are close to the
stage, I was not getting a true representation of what the
system was doing because we had different configurations
every day… it wasn’t an arena tour.

“There again, sometimes system configuration can effect
what playback from the previous show is doing, but it
definitely gives you a heads up.

“If you push the system up as high as it’s going to be on the
night, making allowances for the fact that 80 per cent of the
volume is going to be sucked up by bodies filling up the room,
it really gives you a head start to the evening.

“So, when Gary came in with the band and sound-checked
at sensible levels he was able to get a good feel for the system and what it would be like in the evening without running it at show level, having everything slapping back off the back wall and panicking, thinking, ‘where the hell is that coming from?’ when it won’t actually be there at night, so again, it’s a good starting point.”

With the D1 console cutting down on preparation time, Wooster was able to mix before a show began. As such, during the show he was able to sit back, watch, listen and make slight adjustments. With every new song he was confident that the presets would immediately appear.

After the first three shows of the tour the scenes and
settings for the whole set were fixed, and there weren’t any
physical changes made to any of the gains or compression
settings throughout the rest of the tour. The changes from
then on were solely based on riding the levels and reverbs to
get the right settings, so he was able to listen and fine-tune
as needed.

There was no FX outboard gear used on the entire tour.
Everything was strictly done in the box. Wooster explains:
“With Gary’s material I am a firm believer in keeping it
simple. Let the music really breathe and let it have the life
and aggression that it can have with a live system in a room.

"It is a really aggressive form of music that needs to breath and display the dynamics that it can have through the PA system.”

Wooster also feels that the D1 allowed him to be more
creative with each song. The songs Gary chose for the tour
were very straightforward, and he was able to make subtle
balances and changes each night, making for a better show
overall.
|
“Getting the right reverbs on each song has made it
better for me and the audience. The recording process has
allowed me to have that level of adjustment and control,”
notes Wooster.

The gear Wooster took on the road took up a very small
footprint in each venue with the FOH rack setting up under
the D1. In one venue the option was for him to be centre
house, ten metres back from the stage. He was able to move
to the side of the room in a cut out in the bleachers, which
was just big enough to fit everything. The house didn’t have a
problem because the footprint was so small.

“Once we programme it, having the main fader for vocal,
guitar and drum on the top layer made it unnecessary to have
any other faders at my disposal. Running only 24 channels of
stage sounds made it a quite small list, so we took up less
space in the venue.

“The volume that comes off the stage from Gary’s guitars is
very directional. It helps if I do get to a venue and need to be
in an unusual place that the house does not usually put us. If
I can be away from the area his guitars are firing, it makes it
easier to mix the show because I can hear the guitars through
the system. It makes it better for 89 per cent of the room
because I can hear how the whole band is coming out of the
system rather than off the stage.”

Wooster also talks about an unreleased version of D1
software that will include new features in scene changes and
recall safes incorporated from the D5. These features will be
imported into the D1 and allow for further creativity in his
future projects.

Another advantage of Wooster having a D1 on tour is that
it enabled Gary to produce more content. With the overall
decline in album sales throughout the industry, record
companies constantly hound their artists for more material
for sale or free download online.

“A live, digital recording from a FOH desk with good preamps, as we had with the DiGiCo stuff, is definitely an acceptable starting point as long as the artist is willing to have a true performance captured.

“If they have a good vibe on the night, and it’s a good performance they are happy with that. Yes, there might be a couple of bum notes, but if that represents the evening’s performance and they definitely want to capture that, then it is a good way to go. It definitely has good mileage for record companies to get extra content out of their artists for digital release,” comments Wooster.

All the sets were recorded on ProTools to a mobile Apple G5
and then brought back to Koolworld and loaded on the studio’s
Soundtracs Jade S console. A 20-year devotee of Soundtracs’
boards, he been using the Jade S for nearly eight years.

An interesting facet of this project is that following DiGiCo’s
purchase of the Soundtracs brand in 2002, the company has
developed its range of live consoles from the original Soundtracs platform. As such, Wooster’s Jade S console is essentially the elder brother of the D1, and the two boards effectively working side-by-side displays the seamless integration of the two designs.

He says: “All the sets were recorded on my mobile G5 which I
can plug straight into the studio’s G5 set up. The files come up
instantly and run with out lengthy file transfers.

“I’ll make a couple of preset changes and realign the outputs, but there are no issues running from ProTools in the box into individual channels on the desk. Within ten minutes you are in a position to start cleaning things up and working on it in the studio.”

The easy transfer of files recorded on the ProTools HD system
through the D1 Live to Wooster’s Soundtracs console
puts to rest the commonly believed notion that ProTools can
only be easily used with Digidesign’s equipment. Indeed,
DiGiCo has developed the technology to make this process
extremely easy.

Wooster listened to the songs on individual channels
through the desk to compare how they sounded coming out
of the desk versus listening straight out of ProTools. The plan
is to give representative mixes of the recorded material to
Gary so he can decide if he wants to do something with it in
the future.

Audio Pro was lucky enough to hear the tracks from the
Hendrix show when he loaded them up at Koolworld, and
straight out of the board they sounded great. The live energy
and power of the live sound was captured very well, and, with
little mixing, we were rocking out to Gary, Mitch and Billy’s
version of Voodoo Chile.

“I am a firm believer in both worlds. You can do a certain
amount with editing software; cleaning and editing that
would be almost impossible to do on the desk. The nice thing
about bringing it into an analogue desk is that it does seem to
bring a certain amount of realism back into the tone.

“Whether you believe in the fact that analogue still sounds
better than digital is all relevant to what you are listening to
it through. In the last five years digital has improved by leaps
and bounds to the point where it does sound very good.

"Eighty percent of people can’t hear any difference. You have
to take into consideration that some people are listening to it
on a phone versus someone listening on a £2,000 hi-fi system
in an acoustically treated living room. You have to try and hit
it somewhere in the middle.”

digico.org
koolworld.co.uk