Live Band Audio’s new UK mobile studio offers live recording of entertainment and corporate events, making the recordings available on USB wristband flash drives almost immediately after a gig. In the thinking of Adam Mardell, this replaces the old model of a few dates of an entire tour being recorded for release as the occasional live album, alowing music fans to ‘take home’ an entire evening’s performance.
Key to Mardell’s operation is a recently-purchased DiGiCo SD8 digital mixing desk: ‘I had used DiGiCo consoles before,’ the Live Band Audio Director says. ‘I liked the preamps, the reliability and the fact that the audio quality makes them a good choice for this kind of work. ‘The SD8’s channel count was the right size – we’re currently running 48 channels, but it can run up to 60 channels locally – and the effects are really good. We also have the Waves SoundGrid, which gives us extra creativity and is industry standard. Being able to use both the DiGiCo and Waves effects is brilliant, we can bring in any particular sound that an artist wants.’
Feeds for the system come from an onstage house splitter or, when one isn’t available, the MaDiRack purchased with the SD8. Madi lines are run to the mobile studio, where multitrack recordings are captured on two Pro Tools systems, for later mixing if required. Two stereo mixes for the ‘instant’ wristband recordings are output from four of the SD8’s outputs to a pair of Tascam SS-R200 digital recorders.
Graduating from Australia’s SAE Institute in Byron Bay, Australia, Mardell spent six years honing his craft as a mixing engineer and developing a means of giving fans ‘the magic of the night’ and providing artists with an additional revenue stream. ‘By selling the music on USB bracelets we found we could make copies faster,’ he explains.
‘One of the main reasons for providing this facility in a Transit-sized van is that we can work outside the venue,’ he says. ‘We speak to the production company in advance to organise how the multitrack split is going to happen, but we don’t want to be in the production team’s way at the venue. Once we’re hooked up, we just run in the background. They can get on with the job and forget about us.’
Advance meetings are held with the artist to confirm any branding required on the finished USB wristbands, and any particular requests regarding the sound. At the venue, the Live Band Audio team record the soundcheck for artist approval.
‘It is their art, so we make sure that the artist is 100 per cent happy with everything before the show,’ Mardell says. ‘The reaction has been very positive and the DiGiCo system has been really reliable.’
Once the show has finished, his aim is to have around 300 recordings ready for purchase on USB wristbands within three-to-four minutes: ‘The service doesn’t cost the artist anything and they can profit from the sales. The money we all make is distributed from the sale of the USB wristbands. A lot of bands are touring on exceptionally tight budgets, so any extra bit of money is everything to them.’
