A recent sold-out gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, saw technical production specialist equip event services co-ordinate all the technical elements for The House & Garage Orchestra. (THGO) to deliver energetic reimagining of some of the UK’s biggest house and garage hits.

Their largest London show to date sold out within days of being announced, where the ensemble (founded in 2015) delivered a multi-layered and orchestral take on dance beats of the 1980s and 1990s underground rave and Garage scene. When production manager Kevin Jianoran joined in November 2018, they were an eight-piece with guest vocalists and just him on the crew as the touring sound engineer. Since then, the THGO has become a 20-piece orchestra, with brass and string sections, 14 guest vocalists and a technical crew of eight.

Based in Brixton, equip was approached by Jianoran – also the band’s monitor engineer – to work on their tour last November. He then returned to James Cooper and the equip team to work on the high-profile Shepherd’s Bush gig and a forthcoming tour. ‘Everyone at equip has always been very accommodating and friendly. Nothing is ever a problem, they come up with smart and imaginative solutions and work sensibly within designated budgets and other parameters’ he says.

Jianoran specifically wanted a single production supplier able to deal efficiently with all the technical elements and co-ordination, and being local to the London venue was considered a bonus. ‘We were all super-excited to be working with Kevin and THGO band again,’ says equip MD, Dan Barley. ‘Shepherd’s Bush was a high-pressure one-off, with great public interest and many expectations, with a few technical and logistical challenges which we ensured went smoothly. Apart from that, we all love the music. Most of us have partied to these fabulous sounds at some point.’

equip’s Production & Project Manager for the event was James Cooper, who received the rider and set about scheduling the kit required, which included two Allen & Heath dLive S7000 consoles for FOH and monitors.

They also dovetailed the extras and specials – for both lighting and sound – with the venue’s available house production kit, and liaised with all the crew and creatives involved to ensure The House & Garage Orchestra enjoyed a flawless, relaxed and comfortable production environment.

Production-wise, this show was approached differently from previous THGO gigs. The usual format is around 15 people on stage, but, the numbers – with guests – tripled for this gig. Jianoran wanted to use the Allen & Heath dLive S7000s as an ideal interface with the A&H individual ME-1 monitor systems used for most of the musicians. Apart from that, it is ‘one of the best sounding desks I’ve ever used’ he explains. The FOH console was connected via two DM64 stageboxes on splits and FOH engineer Kieran Edmonds used a selection of additional Lexicon outboard for specific effects.

The project entailed a lot of mics as part of the equip package, of which the vocal ones were KSM8 capsules running on a Shure wireless system.

Both equip and THGO decided early in the planning to use the Empire’s in-house equipment, which for sound is an EAW system of KF850 main hang speakers plus a combination of SB850s and SB1000s for the low end.

Mixing more than 40 inputs from stage prompted Edmonds and Jianoran to choose the desks with which they felt most comfortable, and Edmonds comments that the dLive S7000 workflow is ‘in a different league right now’.

Jianoran decided to use a network of Allen & Heath ME-U and ME-1 A&H personal mixing systems for some sections of the orchestra, mainly so that brass and strings could have individual control of their own monitor mixes via Shure IEMs. He used 30 channels including a selection of stereo stems, individual channels for brass and strings and talkbacks.

The rest of the band, including MD/conductor Benjamin Burrell and some of the vocalists, ran on Sennheiser IEMs, which were strategically combined with equip’s d&b M4 wedges for THGO’s vocalists, DJ/THGO producer Alex Mercier and the monitor engineer foldback.

All the mics were supplied by equip as per the rider with DPA 4099s for each of the strings and Beyer Dynamic M88s for the brass. Percussion and drums featured mainly AKGs and Shures, with KSM8s for the vocals, which Jianoran favours for their flat response and overall good sound.

The brain of the monitor system was similar to FOH – an S7000 with a DM64 stagebox. There were 64 inputs, 11 IEMs for vocalists, technical mixes and Benjamin Burrell, five Shure P9HW wired belt-packs for the band and 14 ME-1s for the string and brass sections. Kevin mixed for the band, vocalists, conductor and techs, and sent out stems and individual channels to the ME-1s for the string and brass sections.

For Edmonds, the greatest challenge mixing THGO shows is achieving Burrell’s vision and fine balance between the original music and the orchestrated version – and getting that across to everyone in the room.

With a lot of people on stage, a high channel count, and an extremely ebullient and excited audience who have grown up with house and garage music, each with a memory from at least one of these tunes, ‘it’s crucial I don’t lose the vibe of the music. This isn’t the proms; people expect a rave and that’s exactly what they get.’

Jianoran worked closely with Cooper and the equip crew preparing the kit in advance, so they would have as stress free a day as possible on site. Also instrumental in ensuring the whole operation run smoothly were equip’s Warehouse Manager, Sheldon Saunders, and Technical Manager, Neil Drewitt.

Barley reports:‘it’s always a pleasure working with Kevin. His technical knowledge and attention to detail give us the headspace to concentrate on our job. We hit it off from the start with THGO. It was great having Ishmael and the production team visit equip’s offices to discuss the gig in detail and preview the kit. Their performance was brilliant and the response from the crowd said it all.’

More: www.equip.london