How does The Nolans Sisters “In the Mood Again” UK Tour works?
This system is based on the system we use on Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds, only here we only have 24 tracks of playback instead of 48 and it’s triggered by the MD rather than myself, and here’s how it all works. The Nolans it is 18 individual pieces comprising of three medleys and two unaccompanied numbers. So this all needed to be triggered auto stop CD player I hear you say but that doesn’t work if you need it to be multi track and output time code for video, lights and sound.
So it had to be a multi track playback system, now I am a big ProTools fan but that’s a lot of expensive hardware to be touring round the country that your not even approaching it’s full potential add to that the need for a backup. This would also have been a bit of hard work as the sessions we’re all created in Logic. So it didn’t need to be anything more than a hard disk multi track, however it would need to have means of getting the audio on from logic digitally and then play it out over analogue so it could go through the A/B switcher then split world. There are not that many around that are proven so it was either the Fostex 2424lv same as what was used on The War of The Worlds or the Mackie SDR 24/96 we went with the Mackie’s as that what was on the shelf at Autograph and from an operation point of view they are much of a much ness.
With the audio play back hardware taken care of next was how was this all going to work, I wanted to give the MD a go button as it puts the control in their hands and I did not want to be tied to the controls of the playback as i would mean I was unable to go and deal with a fault mid show. So being a theatre lad at heart I turned to G-Type to deal with the stopping and locating through out the show.
When I got the Logic sessions their start time was all at 01:00:00.00 and all was routed out of the stereo left and right. The first task was to move the numbers out in time, so the first number ‘Holding out for a Hero’ starts at 01:00:00.00 this being a medley of four songs the second number ‘Pull My Self Together starts at 01:20:00.00, and the next at 01:30:00.00 this gave plenty of space between the songs and kept maths simple for creating the cue list later. Before I laid back the songs to the Mackie I stripped time code to track 24, an old school practice I know but by having the time code as a continuous audio track. Doing it this way rather than using the time code output from the machine just makes duplicating it to the backup and connecting it into the switch simpler. I laid back the tracks from Logic with both systems locked to together and Logic chasing the Mackie.
With all the audio transferred the next step was to create the cue list in G-Type, using it to send out a MMC (Midi Machine Control) Locate, to locate the Mackie to the start of the song, inserted inline with the MIDI into the Mackie are two Midi Solutions Footswitch Controllers one one configured to send out MMC Go and the other MMC Stop, it’s in to these that the MD GO and Stop Button connects to. The MTC (Midi Time Code) from the Mackies is then fed back into G-Type so the next Locate cue is triggered just after the song finishes. And there by the magic of theatre MD conducts the band and starts the songs and if necessary can stop them. The SMPTE time code from track 24 goes through a distribution amp before being sent off to the necessary locations.
All this is packaged well in a floating 22U case so from a daily touring point of view it is very quick and easy to set up and up, literally front and back off power in signal out off to catering. And now, about half way thought the tour has been rock solid.
