Vi6 on mixing duty at NME awards

News

Rob Hughes Mar 28 2008, 9:00am

Soundcraft’s Andy Brown provides console training for event engineers

A Harman Pro UK-specified Soundcraft Vi6 provided FOH at the annual NME awards, held at the end of February at the IndigO2 nightclub at the O2 arena.

The awards ceremony showcased some of Britain's best bands, including Arctic Monkeys, for whom it proved to be a good night. The Sheffield group won best British band, best track and best music video, having already scooped the best band and best album categories at the mainstream music industry bash, the Brit awards, little over a week earlier.

Other post-award-winning performances included Kate Nash and Billy Bragg, and the Manic Street Preachers, who closed the ceremony having won the NME's Godlike Genius award with a seven-minute rendition of their classic, Motorcycle Emptiness.

The IndigO2 is equipped with two Soundcraft Vi6 consoles, one for front-of-house duties and one handling the monitor mix. Andy Brown of Soundcraft, provided Vi6 training for the event's chief front-of-house and monitor engineers at the company's Potters Bar headquarters the day before the NME Awards.

"This year's NME awards was the most smooth-running so far,” they commented. With Andy Brown's teaching skills and patience, the whole week became an invitation to explore the Vi6, rather than a challenge to overcome it."

"With many of the incoming engineers having never used the console, it was remarkably straightforward to get them up to speed, and the response from each was very positive," they added.

Harman Pro UK offers regular free Vi6 training sessions at Potters Bar for live sound engineers. For more information on when the next is being held and to register for a place, go to

harmanprouk.com/training.