Anthony Carr’s setup includes 2x RME MADIface USB audio interfaces and 2x Ferrofish A16 MK-II AD/DA converters
RME and Ferrofish MADI / Analogue converters are the perfect combination for playback systems as they offer a high channel count, accessible I/O and easy connectivity with digital and analogue consoles and broadcast systems.
There are many examples of this versatile system used by key engineers and producers in live, broadcast and recording environments, including Anthony Carr and James Wiffin for One Direction and Olly Murs.
We caught Anthony and James at John Henrys in London, who were setting up for some autumn One Direction shows.
James Wiffin is the playback engineer on the One Direction tour and has also worked many other X-Factor acts including Olly Murs for the last few years, and prior to this he worked with Westlife on back line.
James' playback system includes 2 RME MADIface XT's and 3 Ferrofish A16 Mk-II's which make up a a main and redundant system.
“We are running 24 channels and are looking to increase that next year (2015),” explained James. “This is the only system that gives us that amount of channels without going onto PCIe cards, which can be a problem on tour. The risk of computers and their components breaking on the road are quite high, so the RME and Ferrofish system being on USB 3.0 is so much more reliable.”
“We are running Logic album stems through QLab, which is just for playback. And we can also take out a MADI stream with up to 48 channels, so if needed we could run the Ferrofish A16's directly our of the Digico desk.”
James explained that as time goes on, they will be pushing into those extra channels for video time code, clicks, cue-lines and for any additional analogue I/O for the musicians in the band.
But of course, connectivity isn't everything, it has to please the ears as well. And this is an area that James was particularly confident about saying “RME and Ferrofish are sonically transparent and sound great live.”
Anthony Carr is running a similar system which includes 2 RME MADIface USB's and 2 Ferrofish A16 Mk-II's.
“This playback is primarily for pop acts, which is what I tend to work on most. The system can go from 8 to 24 to 32 channels on Logic, it's scaleable really.” Ant explained that “I need to be able to quickly edit, so the system is on 2 Mac Air's running both Logic and QLab. The shows run on QLab because it's more reliable and stable, there are less thrills to look at and get in the way. We know that when you hit go, it'll just work.”
“The nature of a promo run is that things change so quickly, you have to be ready to mix different vocals, no vocals, more vocals, dance, there are so many variations. So, you need to be able make edits and mix changes on the fly.”
Anthony Carr, Playback, Edit & Recording Engineer for One Direction
Anthony continued that for Olly Murs, the RME and Ferrofish playback system is ready to supply audio for 3 different set ups, “Live vocals to stereo track, so that is Olly and his backing vocals. Then there is an 'as live band' version with stems recorded using the RME and Ferrofish system. This means that we are still able to mix it, but it's our way of stepping up the production value of the show. And then on tour where the band is live, the system is used to run cues and clicks from QLab.”
As well as MADI I/O, the Ferrofish A16 Mk-II also provides 2 x ADAT I/O, MIDI I/O/Thru and 16 balanced analogue I/O. All at a price that will suit any budget.
The RME MADIface XT is the most comprehensive and versatile MADI interface on the market with 396 channels on 3 x MADI I/O (2 x optical and 1 x coaxial), 2 x analogue Mic/Line preamp inputs (XLR & TRS), 2 x analogue outputs on XLR and headphones and AES/EBU I/O.
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