Cinevideogroup’s flagship OB14 truck is regularly booked for the biggest and most complex music projects in Europe – most recently, it has been in action on three major projects involving three major acts.
The Dutch mobile recording specialist sent the largest vehicle in its OB fleet, OB14, to capture Dutch superstar Marco Borsato simultaneously in 2D and 3D. Staged in the Netherlands’ biggest concert hall, the Gelredome, in Arnhem, this was the country’s first major concert to be recorded entirely in 3D. Using more than 38 cameras, the recording was completely tapeless, running all camera, video and audio signals on fibre-optic cables, using 128 channels of multitrack audio on the vehicle’s 56-fader Lawo mc²66 console.
The OB14 then moved on to Italy, to record local megastar Ligabue in 3D in front of a crowd of 120,000. The same OBV then went on to the spectacular Castello Scaligero in Villafranca di Verona, to record a rare performance by legendary US rock band Toto. The six-piece line-up, featuring original band members Steve Lukather, David Paich and Steve Porcaro, plus Simon Phillips (drums), Nathan East (bass) and singer Joseph Williams, was recorded in HD video for DVD and Blu-ray release. The video shoot, which used eight HD cameras, was under the control of British director Nigel Dick.
In OB14, Cinevideogroup senior audio engineer and recording sound supervisor for the project Huub Lelieveld, with colleague Koen Bredael, created a temporary mix and monitoring the incoming signal quality. American music producer CJ Vanston would later handle the final DVD mix. ‘It was a relatively simple job, Toto being a straightforward rock band, so we were using just 48 tracks,’ says Lelieveld. ‘To squeeze as much out of the applause and sing-alongs as possible, I put out 12 audience microphones, ten shotguns and two cardioid microphones for crowd ambience.’
Lelieveld ran a fibre cable from OB to stage, where a 56-mic input Lawo stagebox was placed next to the monitor position to take the splits: ‘We used power from the PA system to feed the two (redundant) power supplies of that stagebox. Because we remained completely electronically separate from the PA, we didn’t need transformers or an active splitter.
‘With a live concert, my job is to capture the instruments and performers as accurately as possible, and the accuracy of the Lawo preamps and converters is perfect for that,’ he says. ‘The extremely short analogue cable runs (just 2m of XLR patchcords) and the lack of transformers or additional preamp stages of active splitter systems, together with the accuracy of the Lawo preamps and converters, made for an extremely pristine audio signal, free of buzzes and hums.’
Lelieveld was recording the live show to not one but three multitrack systems. With no room for error, three separate optical Madi outputs from the Lawo console were connected to a Merging Technologies 128-channel Pyramix multitrack system, a Pro Tools system and a PC with RME Madi cards running Reaper.
Cinevideogroup now has four OBVs carrying Lawo mc²66 digital audio consoles, the first of which was installed five years ago. OB14 is its largest vehicle, designed for big music events and sports productions. All onboard routing is handled by a Lawo Nova 73 HD which offers 96kHz operation.
More: www.cinevideogroup.com
More: www.lawo.de
