08/08/07
Grammy Award-winning alt-pop act Gnarls Barkley—a duo comprised of DJ/producer Danger Mouse and singer Cee-Lo Green—hit the road last January for a four month tour that wound its way through cities in the U.S. and Australia. At the FOH position was respected engineer Garry Brown, who is most noted for his work with guitarist and Phish-founder Trey Anastasio as well as several prominent Christian bands including Mercy Me. For Gnarls Barkley, Brown chose to employ two Digidesign® VENUE live sound consoles for FOH (Front of House) and monitor mixes.

	FOH Garry Brown on a Digidesign VENUE D-Show.

Brown first discovered the Digidesign VENUE live sound console back in the spring of 2006 while on tour with Anastasio. The relatively short 15-show acoustic tour was to be recorded, which presented him the ideal opportunity to audition the VENUE system that he’d heard so much about because of its seamless integration with Pro Tools® recording systems. Working with VENUE and Pro Tools together, Brown recorded every show on the tour, with some recordings going on for up to four hours per night.

The resulting recordings have been popular with Anastasio’s fans. “Trey posts board mixes to his website for download on a regular basis,” says Brown. “Also at least two full-length shows have been sold, which are purely board mixes.”

Just one year after first discovering VENUE, the console is now Brown’s number one choice. He’s since used the system at more than 100 events in the last year alone, and has yet to encounter a single problem. “Put it this way, I’m not using any other console!” he raves. “[It] has nothing to do with budget or space—I love the way this console sounds. It’s the best sounding digital console out there today. My mixes are better than they have ever been and I have become a more creative mixer!”

In addition to sound quality, Brown gives VENUE equally high marks for usability—an area in which he feels it’s significantly ahead of the competition. “What you see is what you get,” he explains. “The onboard dynamics are excellent and the software is laid out so well [that] it makes it very simple to use. The problem with other digital consoles is that there are so many layers of software that you forget where things are. This console has been a dream to use.”

For the Gnarls Barkley tour, the band required 44 audio inputs, so Brown specified a single VENUE stage rack equipped with 48 inputs. He also set up the VENUE D-Show® console as a 64-input frame, and took along a Pro Tools system to make extensive use of the VENUE system’s unique Virtual Soundcheck capabilities, which he finds invaluable for properly dialing in the mix. And even though he generally uses the plug-ins sparingly, Brown has grown to rely heavily on Crane Song’s Phoenix—employing it on nearly every input and on the main stereo bus throughout the tour. His favorites include the Serato Rane Series Dynamics compressor and Bomb Factory® SansAmp PSA-1™.

For more information about Gnarls Barkley, visit www.gnarlsbarkley.com.

Trey Anastasio is currently mixing a live album of material recorded with the VENUE system during his 2007 New Year’s Eve show. For more information, and for a sample of his live show, visit www.treyanastasio.com