Coopers Live, Loud & Local is an initiative designed to help keep the spirit of the pub rolling by bringing everything we love about our local to the lounge rooms, kitchens, balconies and bedrooms of locked-down Aussies all over the country.
Hosted by superstar duo Myf Warhurst and Joel Creasey and beamed live on the Facebook pages of pubs across Australia, Live, Loud & Local showcases a weekly line-up of homegrown entertainment including music, pub trivia and celebrity chefs reinventing pub classics to cook at home.
Shot all over Australia, acts that have performed include The Living End, James Reyne, Jon Stevens and most recently Ocean Alley at The Northern in Byron Bay.
Safety came first with plenty of space and not too many people in the venue. Copious amounts of hand sanitiser were available and the crew ensured vocal mics were disinfected between line checks and performances.
Mixing FOH for Ocean Alley was their usual guy Callum Howell who took in a fully self-contained audio control package supplied by RTA Touring. This package included two DiGiCo SD11i at both FOH and monitors, a DiGiCo D2-Rack (shared I/O for both consoles), 8ch Shure PSM1000 and a 48ch patch system. Cal supplied his mic kit as well as his Waves Server One system.
“All told, it was very smooth!” commented monitor engineer Jordan Tanner. “We were lucky enough to have a pre-production/rehearsal day in the venue before the shoot to dust off the cobwebs and dial everything in. We spent a lot of time working on tones and parts. Cal is actually the band’s producer in the studio so he works very closely with the guys as far as sounds and parts etc.
“Most difficult, however, proved to be the stage! If you’ve been fortunate enough to visit The Northern, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Glossy black gaffers tape is incredibly visible under lights and even more so on camera, so I spent a good deal of time before the shoot tearing up what must have been years worth of tape from the stage.”
The Ocean Alley input list currently stands at 30 channels, these all hit the D2-Rack for both FOH and monitors. Cal and Jordan are both very much on the same page as far as their approach to gain structure goes so it makes it easy for them to share preamps.
“From there, it hits my console at monitors, is mixed entirely ‘in the box’ on my SD11 and heads back out the D2-rack to my PSM1000 transmitters,” elaborated Jordan. “I’m a big proponent of the ‘keep it simple, stupid’ mantra, particularly as far as monitors go. While there’s an element of embellishment, in general, I’m trying to deliver an accurate representation to the band of what they’re doing on stage. The guys and I all use JH Audio JH13v2 IEMs, which I can’t speak highly enough of.”
As a monitor guy, Jordan says that the DiGiCo/PSM1000 combo can’t be beaten especially as he knows the platform reasonably well resulting in great consistency show to show. For a six-piece band like Ocean Alley, having monitoring consistency is key to ensure they’re able to focus, on what can at times be a lot to listen to. Jordan is also a huge fan of the gain-sharing factor!
“When both engineers are using the same console, sharing a rack makes perfect sense to me,” he added. “It saves money, minimises potential points of failure and means that if I can hear it- so can FOH, which is great peace of mind.
“As I mentioned earlier I’m on JH13v2 IEMs, same as the band. I also think that’s critical. It’s hard to make decisions on what you’re hearing if it’s not necessarily the same as what the artists are hearing themselves.”
At FOH, Cal picks up the inputs from the D2, and similarly builds his mix on the SD11, supplemented with some additional Waves favourites including H-Reverb, PSE & F6. He monitored with a pair of Genelec 8010s & JH13v2 IEMs. There was also some mix bouncing involved for ‘small device’ reference (iPhones/TVs etc).
The Coopers streaming guys took a stereo pair from Cal into a Sound Devices portable recorder, and that was that! What you heard on the stream was his direct mix, which sounded great.
“The whole event was great and I had a blast,” said Jordan. “It was so good to be back on the gig I was even appreciative of the 20 hours round trip from Wollongong to Byron – we drove the 3T with all the gear!
“The mix sounded great, and the lighting was on point- shout out to Dane, this was his first time working with the band, filling in for long time LD Jake ‘Dutchy’ Byslma who unfortunately couldn’t make it due to his Victorian residency!”
“We at Intense Lighting Hire were working with lighting designer Jake “Dutchy” Bylsma to specify a lighting rig for a performance by band Ocean Alley as part of the Coopers Live, Loud & Local campaign,” added Dane Boulton. “Jake designed a rig based around the floor package used for the band’s previous tour, compacted to fit onto the small pub stage.”
As the gig drew closer it became apparent that the unfortunate current state of air travel would prevent Dutchy from being able to attend the gig and so Dane was asked if he could accompany the rig in a freelance capacity to the venue to build and operate the pre-programmed show at Dutchy’s direction.
Gear chosen included Chauvet R2 Washes for bright punchy saturated effect looks and backlight on the band members, Nitec LED Blinder 2s for a classic blinder effect, Claypaky Axcor 400 Profile for sharp gobo breakup looks behind the band, ETC Source 4 Lustr 2s for the powerful, high-quality front light, important as the performance was being captured and live-streamed on cameras. Atmosphere was by Look Solutions and an MA Lighting grandMA2 light was supplied for control.
The stream was produced by Brisbane based video production company Light and Shade Media and featured songs from Ocean Alley’s previously released albums and EPs plus new songs yet to be performed live due to the postponement of the band’s tour. The band also played songs from their new album ‘Lonely Diamond’ that will be released on June 19.
https://www.intenselightinghire.com/
