myMix played a big part when Pete Tong recently embarked on a run of dates to perform his anthemic Ibiza Classics with the 65 piece Heritage Orchestra conducted by Jules Buckley. Vocal guests included Jessie Ware, and Ella Eyre and John Newman both performing their Rudimental collaborations. They were also joined by the legendary Candi Staton who sang “You got the love” some 30 years on from its original release.
While recording and mixing dance and classical genres have become popular, there are some major considerations when taking it out on the road. Not least, the ability to offer a large number of musicians their own monitor mix, which is the primary reason that myMix was chosen for the tour. Synthax Audio (UK) met up with the all Dutch team of Fred den Dulk (system designer), Ron Peeters (monitors) and Tom Gelissen (FoH) at the O2 London soundcheck last week to find out more.
There are no other systems that can handle this many channels
“We became interested and wanted to help after hearing about the project from Tom (FoH)" explained Fred from Next Level Audio who are based out of Oss, Nederlands.
Ron Peeters, who is the regular monitor engineer for the Heritage Orchestra continued “We were looking for a hard wired monitor system which was able to handle sufficient inputs to have at least the ability to give every musician a direct out of their own mic or a blend of both mics on one instrument, so they were able to control their own level in their mix.
So, the main purpose of our search was to find a system that could handle that many inputs. myMix is unique in this way because it gave us the required 54 stage mic inputs/direct outs and 30 channels of sub-mixes and there are no other systems that can handle this many channels.”
The orchestra were fed a number of sub-mixes (Pete Tong, strings, brass, band, etc.) to their myMix mixers with the section leader and their own instruments being made available on separate channels. The myMix mixers were attached to their seats using a K&M microphone bar giving them quick and easy access. All the myMix mixers were then networked using eight Cisco switchers spread around the stage.
To get the three monitor 96kHz 32ch MADI output streams, onto the myMix network, they simply converted the MADI from 96kHz to 48kHz and then used two RME ADI-648’s to convert the MADI to ADAT, which was in turn fed into an impressive rack of six myMix IEX-16L-A expanders at the monitor position.
myMix is one of the best personal monitoring systems that I have ever heard
With three concerts over three consecutive nights in Birmingham, London and Manchester, rig time was important. “We are able to have all the myMix mixers set up and have the system running in less than an hour. It’s so easy and it just works“ Fred explained. He went on to say “I had given the orchestra members just a five minute overview of the myMixes, and we didn’t get any questions. All these classical musicians were just able to use it straight away with no problem.” myMix has proved it is the best kind of technology – the kind that the musician just instinctively knows how to use.
“When I first saw the myMix system 8 or 9 years ago it was a fairly simple system, so it didn't trigger our interest at the time. But now it is able to handle so many input channels, it is perfect for our requirement” commented Ron. “To be honest, myMix is one of the best personal monitoring systems that I have ever heard, because its sound quality is really good too.”
Synthax UK believe this is the largest myMix deployment ever in the UK, and probably one of the largest ever in Europe. But now that Fred, Ron and Tom have found how quick it is to set up and how easy it is to use they hope to specify it a lot more in the future with orchestral crossover gigs like this.
To find out more about myMix go to www.synthax.co.uk/myMix or call 01727 821 870 to arrange a demo.
Our thanks to Fred den Dulk & Ron Peeters at www.nextlevelaudio.nl
About myMix
myMix is a network (Fast Ethernet 100Mbps) based audio mixing and recording system designed for easy operation, fulfilling even the highest audio demands . Each myMix mixer has network inputs and outputs and can operate either self-contained or integrated with any analogue or digital mixing console for systems as large as 500 audio channels. With optional SDHC cards each myMix can record up to 16 audio channels as 24-bit wav files, which can be used in any DAW or played back and remixed within myMix.