Live8 - Technical

[dbuckley]

I saw it on TV (yes, even over here!)

 

As did I.

 

Robbie did it for me.

 

Dissapointed with Floyd - last saw them at Bingly Hall many eons ago (and Knebworth before that), but did see The Pink Floyd Experience a couple of months back, and frankly, I'll take the tribute over the real thing these days. The real thing was OK, but I'd describe their performance as "flat" (as in lacklustre, not in semitones). Distinctly OK, but in their hayday they were much better than 'OK'.

 

The vid for 'Money' looked the same as they used all those years back, funny to see that again!

 

I also thought The Who were well worth the effort - they may be old, but somewhere the anger still burns... I think they were much better (particularly Mr Townshend) than when I last saw them, despite being reduced in number.

 

Finally, its nice to see Sting producing music I enjoy again after a break of many years

 

Overall, a great show.

[IanG]

The sound setup was vast, they had 11 repeater towers, half of which had subs underneath them... It was an E-V setup. Having said that, I don't think it was particularly good.

 

The volume was unusually low for such an event. They had a really (sometimes painfully) harsh high-end, which was really annoying. Maybe it was because I was right in front of one of the arrays, but it still shouldn't have been like that. The bass was variable too - really low at the beginning, but much too high at a few points. Lots of mic/level/feedback problems, but maybe that's to be expected. All in all, not terribly impressive.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I think that's one of the hazards of such a big event - laws of physics prevent you covering 150,000 people with even sound outdoors - especially in a place so exposed to wind etc. as Hyde Park (well, unless you take the Glasto silent disco approach).

 

As to the volume level - bear in mind two things

 

a) It's a long gig, so health and safety limits will be applying over the full day

b) Hyde Park is a Royal Park in a residential area, so the limits will have been set to reflect this.

[IanG]

it was interesting how dominated all the concerts where with Sennhiser and neumann mics (including the use of neumann capsules on sennhiser transmiters). there seemed to be no beyer dynamics which are normaly the british standard. 

 

Not sure what you mean by "Beyerdynamics which are normaly the british standard" but Sennheiser have provided support to the Live 8 gigs - including more than 300 channels of Sennheiser wireless microphones, guitar systems and wireless monitoring systems plus over 1000 wired mics.

 

 

the feedback is unacceptable I thought. this is a profestional event. I have to do concerts with no rehersals and I dont get feedback and I have very limited equiptment and no feedback destroyers. (maby they should have bought some behringer FDB's)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Ho ho ho. It's fair enough to criticize if you think something wasn't right, but you can't really compare what you're doing to what's taking place on that stage. With literally hundreds of mics on stage it takes only one accidental cross-patch and you're chasing round the monitor desk looking for the problem channel. Combine that with broadcast feeds going left right and centre, artists own systems being brought in, wedges all over the place, shedloads of UHF frequencies being in use, multiple desks, vocal mics being changed between acts to ones with different patterns and artists own engineers getting involved and perhaps you might see that the guys there did an amazing job of keeping it all together.

 

An event of that magnitude could quite easily have gone so, so wrong and it's a testament to the skill and ability of all the engineers on site (monitors, FOH and broadcast) that it all went off so well and will be remembered for the right reasons.

[PeterT]

Ho ho ho. It's fair enough to criticize if you think something wasn't right, but you can't really compare what you're doing to what's taking place on that stage. With literally hundreds of mics on stage it takes only one accidental cross-patch and you're chasing round the monitor desk looking for the problem channel. Combine that with broadcast feeds going left right and centre, artists own systems being brought in, wedges all over the place, shedloads of UHF frequencies being in use, multiple desks, vocal mics being changed between acts to ones with different patterns and artists own engineers getting involved and perhaps you might see that the guys there did an amazing job of keeping it all together. 

 

An event of that magnitude could quite easily have gone so, so wrong and it's a testament to the skill and ability of all the engineers on site (monitors, FOH and broadcast) that it all went off so well and will be remembered for the right reasons.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Here, Here, I wouldn't want to be in charge of Sound down there. I was so impressed with the overall quality and speed of the resets, having that revolve really helped.

 

Peter Kay, slightly tipsy I reckon and The Who, superb but Pink Floyd stole the show for me. with only 1 extra guitarist (Tim Renwick I guess?) they still made a fantastic sound comparable to the Pulse Gigs of '94. Though Gilmours facial antics during his solos were quite funny.

 

All in all a brilliant gig that will be remembered for a long time to come (20 years I reckon...)

[Russ]

I think that's one of the hazards of such a big event - laws of physics prevent you covering 150,000 people with even sound outdoors - especially in a place so exposed to wind etc. as Hyde Park (well, unless you take the Glasto silent disco approach).

 

As to the volume level - bear in mind two things

 

a) It's a long gig, so health and safety limits will be applying over the full day

b) Hyde Park is a Royal Park in a residential area, so the limits will have been set to reflect this.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yeah, I read today that there were noise level restrictions imposed, which is fair enough. However, the Glasto pyramid stage has an audience of the same order of magnitude, and the sound quality is generally much better than that (although it does have the big advantage that the audience is on a slope), and it's not a hell of a lot louder.

 

Having said that, I wouldn't want to do the sound for that myself - sounds like a nightmare, trying to make sure it sounds good everywhere in relation to 13 sets of speakers... 300 radio mics? Ye gods.

 

While we're on the topic of laws of physics, does anyone know a good reason why they didn't delay the rear video screens in time with the audio? At the back of the venue it must have been over 2 seconds out of sync (at the screen position), and even a third of the way back it was annoying.

[the kid]

After watching some oh philly the bin things are fans for Destinys Child. no Revlove yet.

[Shaun Foster]

While we're on the topic of laws of physics, does anyone know a good reason why they didn't delay the rear video screens in time with the audio? At the back of the venue it must have been over 2 seconds out of sync (at the screen position), and even a third of the way back it was annoying.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I guess if they'd have done that you would see things like big lighting changes first on stage then on the first set of screens, then on the second etc... not sure if that would look better or worse though.

[JohnPartridge]

I think the event was very Good in all fairness. The guy who was saying about them not having feedback destroyers , I can honestly say that they did have feedback destroyers but still its nerly impossible to wipe out feedback all together.

 

The lighting was good when it got darker, I liked the idea of the mac600s on the speaker towers , still they could have turned the brightness up and focus them better , I think the frost effect didnt work , I would have had it alot brighter over the croud.

 

I also thought that the lighting was quite repetative after a while, not much change just LED colour changes and I think more use of the mac550's would have made it a little more varied.

 

All in all a very good show

 

John Partridge

[paulears]

Smiling a bit.

 

Me - I think they did an amazing job. I, like someone else said, would not have wanted to be mxing the show - Id love to say I could have done better, but that's total rubbish.

 

Feedback destroyers? I doubt it somehow. In an unpredictable live show, letting something howl long enough to get sucked out isn't on - is it? AND - with all those sources and destinations, just working out where it is coming from and why would be a nightmare. I think they did really solid work, from what I heard. As for someone saying their live gigs don't have feedback - I somehow think we are talking about major differences in scale here. A stage so large you can't even shout accross. Just working out which mic someone has grabbed is hard enough (binoculars?), I think we can forgive the odd squeal.

 

They had the best people available for every job, and let's face it - it wasn't us!

 

So ease up on the harsh comments guys (and gals) I'd quite like that one on my CV.

[david.elsbury]

Here's a question, the speaker remote towers. They had a PA, Video wall, and lighting on them. I realise that audio and video (and maybe DMX) can travel a long way over cables / be wireless, but how did they get power to each tower? Run from a central point? Daisychain? Generator at each tower?

I'm not familiar with Hyde Park itself, but on TV the sheer size of it looks huge.

 

Thanks

David

[zonino]

does anyone know who provided the LED screens? I've got a feeling some of them may have been from YSLAV but not sure

[Russ]

Here's a question, the speaker remote towers. They had a PA, Video wall, and lighting on them. I realise that audio and video (and maybe DMX) can travel a long way over cables / be wireless, but how did they get power to each tower? Run from a central point? Daisychain? Generator at each tower?

I'm not familiar with Hyde Park itself, but on TV the sheer size of it looks huge.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Gen at each tower, at least for the towers with video as well. The towers without power at them had cables run over the ground from the towers which did.

 

does anyone know who provided the LED screens? I've got a feeling some of them may have been from YSLAV but not sure

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I dunno about the ones on the stage, but the repeater screens were lorry-mounted jobs from Massteknik. All the way from Sweden.

[lampieman]

I get the impression that the BBC was running everything screen wise? also that the whole thing was TV orientated and not for the live audience, hence why a lot of the lighting to me looked as tho there was no movement or even colour for a lot of it, even in the dark when I was looking forward to them actually doing some real work with movers, I didnt see one gobo wash or anything.

[JohnPartridge]

I get the impression that the BBC was running everything screen wise? also that the whole thing was TV orientated and not for the live audience, hence why a lot of the lighting to me looked as tho there was no movement or even colour for a lot of it, even in the dark when I was looking forward to them actually doing some real work with movers, I didnt see one gobo wash or anything.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Yes , exactly my opinion, it seemed that their was alot of movers rigged up but they were hardly used, it was a shame.

 

John Partridge

[Russ]

I get the impression that the BBC was running everything screen wise? also that the whole thing was TV orientated and not for the live audience, hence why a lot of the lighting to me looked as tho there was no movement or even colour for a lot of it, even in the dark when I was looking forward to them actually doing some real work with movers, I didnt see one gobo wash or anything.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yup, it was definitely all BBC events - they're so good at it I don't know why anyone would use anyone else :huh:.

 

And yeah, I noticed the lack of movement too, although the lighting did seem somewhat hastily put together, maybe they were so busy plotting the LEDs that they didn't have time to do much with the movers? It's not as if having TV coverage precludes doing fancy things with the lights - take Glasto for example.