Club LED Newcastle on the 28th of October was an absolute killer show! Above is the front of house view with the house lights on, I didn’t get many shots with the new camera, I need to get a new memory card for it so I have some more space to take more photos on the night! As you can see, hopefully, we have the LS9-16 at front of house with the lovely little LED music stand light I picked up from Muso’s Corner a few months back. On the right in the interface rack containing the RME UFX Fireface which is one of the most brilliant pieces of gear I have used in a long time. For a compute interface to provide 30 inputs and 30 outputs in a single one rack unit space is pretty intense in the first place, then add to the fact is has four high quality mic pres (And when I say high quality, I mean very high quality), which accept mic, line and Hi-Z(DI) inputs, as well as eight additional line inputs on the back and 16 channels of ADAT input and AES/EBU as well. Then all of this can be transmitted to a computer via USB or firewire. That makes one brilliant interface on it’s own, then add top notch drivers and an extremely extensive DSP mixer and control program. The icing on the cake is the direct to USB recording the unit offers. I can plug in an external HDD, the grey unit you see next to the laptop with the blue light, and recording directly from the interface, meaning the 16 channels from the LS9, the 8 lines from the  M-Audio 2626 below the UFX and the four mic pres on the front of the UFX can all be recorded without a computer. The computer makes it easy to setup the recording, but it can all be recorded from the front panel of the interface. It has been 100% rock solid thus far. You’ll see my Lenovo tablet PC on top of the interface rack to play background music between the bands, usually with the docking station to play CD’s for band intro’s but I forgot it this gig!, and to control the UFX recording and provide large meters always accessible at a glance for every channel.

You can’t really see it in the photo but I’m running four QSC KW181’s clustered 2×2 in the centre with two QSC KW153’s on stage raised a little with some milk crates to get above the audience. This FOH speaker combination is something very nice for this venue and the genre of music, metal in this case. The speakers are extremely clear and the RMS limiting is very clean and unobtrusive. The overall output of them also fits the bill for the gig, I haven’t used a proper db metre at taken a reading but I’m happy with the overall output and I’m not wanting any more volume.

The other thing you’ll see in the photo above is a wireless router. This aspect of the A rig is one I’m highly impressed with and has got many positive comments about from bands and crowd members thus far. The LS9-16 can be controlled wirelessly from a ipad using the Yamaha Stagemix application. This has allowed me to wander around the venue and listen where the members of the audience actually are and make changes on the fly. I can also jump up on stage during changeover and mix the bands monitors right next to them and actually hear what they are hearing. Like I said, very impressed thus far.

There’s two snaps from some of the bands, as I said before, I wish I had a memory card for my new camera so I could take a few more shots. As you can see the lighting on the night was top notch, with some new additions from Lights In Production including some new UV bars and some mini movers in wash with some spots to come.

The show also marked the first use of the Sennheiser EW500 G3 E945 wireless microphone in  a proper setting apart from simple speech. You can see Greg from Viral Millennium in the second picture.

I’m currently mixing Viral Millennium’s up coming album, we saw a sneak peak of two of the tracks from it at this show and how their sound is evolving. Some cool stuff is coming up.

Remember, Club LED is on the last Friday of every month at the Newcastle District Tennis Club in Broadmeadow. RPM Audio will always be handing the sound reinforcement for the show, so come and say Hi! if you are out and about!

Cheers,

Russel Murton

RPM Audio