06/12/07
British alt-rock band Placebo have been traversing the globe on a full world tour since January 2006, playing events and major festivals throughout the U.S., South America, Europe, Australia, China, Korea, and other Far East locations. During this time, monitor engineer Charlie Bradley has become a big fan of the Digidesign® VENUE live sound environment.

Bradley starting using a VENUE D-Show® console during the tour’s first year, but in the last six months he and Placebo FOH mixer Ian Nelson, switched to using a pair of the more compact VENUE D-Show Profile™ systems, which handle a total of 45 inputs for the band, along with the collective output requirements. By the tour’s conclusion, Bradley estimates that they will have used the VENUE systems at over 250 shows.

Bradley has been impressed with VENUE’s ease-of-use, sonic quality, reliability and overall performance. “I’ve used digital consoles for many years now, and VENUE was very quick to learn,” says Bradley. “You can see everything very easily from the screen or console surface—with plenty of button shortcuts. You can quickly navigate across the screen layers, too.”

“The sonic quality of the VENUE consoles, in my opinion, is unsurpassed,” he continues. “Everyone noticed the difference when we switched over to them from the competition’s consoles. Plus, the latest revision of the D-Show software is great. The implementation of the edit screen, enabling relative or absolute changes to be made to snapshots on the fly, is perfect for mixing monitors.”

VENUE’s ability to run TDM plug-ins made it possible to both streamline the band’s outboard audio hardware requirements while simultaneously providing Bradley with a much broader selection of processing options. In essence, Bradley is able to save and load all plug in settings as part of a single show file. No longer is he limited to a solitary family of on-board processors. And since VENUE is able to run Pro Tools plug-in effects natively, there is no need to employ a second computer system just for the plug-ins.

“Plug-ins mean we no longer are tied to the proprietary digital gates and effects,” says Bradley. “We can now choose exactly what insert we want to use and hear instantly how they sound. And with Virtual Soundcheck utilizing Pro Tools|HD®, we can also try out a variety of insert units without having to get the band to play for hours on end in rehearsal. Of course, with plug-ins you can easily change settings at will right on the console and immediately make them a part of your snapshot recalls. The user interface of plug-ins is ideal because they replicate the original units, so everyone’s familiar with them and can quickly navigate them. Some of my favorites are the Drawmer gates and the TC Master X3.”

Thanks to VENUE’s streamlined integration with Pro Tools, the band has been able to reduce sound check times as well as record numerous shows over the past year using both Pro Tools LE® and Pro Tools|HD®. “Having Pro Tools for playback through Virtual Soundcheck means we can have a more accurate picture of what the band will sound like in the venue, and this has sped up the sound check process ten-fold. This means less time needed with the artists, so they [the band] can concentrate on relaxing or doing promos with the knowledge that acoustically everything will be as it should be. Also, having continuous access to these recordings of sessions and shows, means Ian or I can provide mixes for TV broadcast etc. from live shows and control the quality of the bands output.”

To learn more about Placebo and to get tour dates and downloads, visit:
www.placeboworld.co.uk