SSE Hire
First Tour for Midas XL8 with OMD
OMD’s Architecture and Morality European tour sees founder members Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys perform together for the first time since 1988. They are joined by the band’s original line-up, together with FOH engineer Stuart Mørch-Kerrison who first mixed them back in 1984.
Mørch-Kerrison specified his “perfect combination” for the tour: a Nexo GEO T system with the first touring Midas XL8 live performance system specified for an international tour.
“I knew what I wanted for the tour,” says Mørch-Kerrison. “I made it very clear that I had certain parameters, and one of those was the XL8, and my preferred system PA wise, the Nexo GEO T, my system of choice, the best I’ve ever used. Together it’s the perfect combination.”
The tour is being supplied by British PA company SSE Hire, a major user of Nexo GEO T and a member of the M7 Audio consortium, set up to facilitate XL8 hire in the UK.
The typical OMD set-up is L/R arrays of 11x GEO T4805s plus 3x GEO T2815 downfill cabinets. With CD18 subs, the system is powered by CAMCO Vortex amplifiers.
Midas XL8 at FOH
“I never thought about being the first user of the XL8" says Mørch-Kerrison, "I just knew this was the tool I wanted to use. The great things about Midas are reliability, commitment to redundancy, and the fact it has to work every day – it should be able to fall out the back of a truck and still work.
“I’m a long-term Midas user: the Midas sound has become part of what I expect to hear when I push the faders up. Whenever I use any other console, I find myself not quite at home with how it sounds because I’ve been using Midas consoles for 15 years. And because I wanted the show to be very dynamic with lots of changes, it was going to be much easier and more efficient if we used a digital desk.”
Mørch-Kerrison is working the console quite extensively, using around 50 scenes during the show. “Certain songs have five or six scenes in them, to switch from verses to choruses etc,” he says. “I’ve discovered a lot about the architecture of the console and software because I need to switch instantly and seamlessly from one thing to another.
“Otherwise it’s not a huge set-up – 36 inputs coming off the stage – but that’s not the issue – I wanted it for the sound, the capability, etc. We have the XL8 in a 48-channel format with two stageboxes, so it’s configured appropriately for the show.
Despite the extensive capability of the XL8, Mørch-Kerrison has found it easy to relate to the mixing system as a tried and trusted workhorse.
“To be honest, and this is a great compliment to the console, after the second gig, I forgot I was using an XL8 and it was just the console that we were using on this tour,” he says. “Navigation is fantastic, it’s a brilliant way to work, and I work it very actively. With other digital consoles, I never felt I could work fast enough, and there was never enough accessibility. One of the reasons I went with the XL8 is everything I need is there.
"The POP group is a fantastic feature as I can have a group of input channels in front of me when the song starts by assigning everything to a POP group. I can store a scene for a particular song so that as soon as I recall it, the faders I need are there and I’m not looking for anything.
It works the same way with the VCAs; as soon as you hit it, the faders you’ve assigned come up immediately. With the combination of the VCAs and POP groups, which are freely assignable, you can have a group with any channel in front of you at any one time, without having to look through pages and layers, so it becomes very fast to work with.
“I was surprised by the responsiveness of the console and the dynamics are just superb, the EQ is fantastic, better than I thought it was going to be. I wanted it to sound like a Midas, but it sounds better than any Midas I’ve ever used, and also feels like the best analogue console.”
Further Dates
Due to the success of the tour, further dates have been added. In addition OMD are appearing at summer festivals across Europe and the XL8 accompanies them all the way. As Mørch-Kerrison concludes, “XL8 has become a real part of the show.”
