Red Hot Chili Peppers Bring Midas Through Europe

From ProSoundNews.com

Red Hot Chili Peppers Bring Midas Through Europe
By
Jul 5, 2006, 14:31

New York (July 5, 2006)--The Red Hot Chili Peppers recently made their way around Europe for a TV and radio promo tour behind their current hit album, Stadium Arcadium, and along for the ride was longtime FOH engineer, Dave Rat of eponymously titled Rat Sound. While he's mixed the band for some time, for this go round, he moved faders on something new--not a massive, new digital desk but rather a 32-channel Midas Verona.

Dave Rat of Rat Sound, longtime FOH engineer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, mixed the band on a 32-channel Midas Siena at the recent KROQ Weenie Roast at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine Meadows, CA.

"My experience has been that the function and sound quality of the smaller-format Midas consoles is close enough to the larger Midas consoles that I can switch back and forth relatively easily," Dave Rat said. "I also wanted to step away from the increasingly popular trend of wedging highly complex and powerful consoles--digital or analog--into simple and relatively non-complex gigs. I wanted a compact and easy to set up FOH world, yet I also wanted to be able to see everything that is going on at a single glance, without pressing buttons. Digital denies me this, but I can easily achieve it with a compact analog setup."

This setup worked so well for Rat that when he returned to the US he continued with the concept, going on to mix larger shows on small-format Midas analog consoles. "Since the consoles make it relatively easy to remember settings and/or chart, I found I was able to swap out and even transfer between console versions fairly easily," he continued. "When the Peppers headlined the 18,000 capacity, KROQ Weenie Roast at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine Meadows, I used a 32-channel Siena. Even though the console is more optimized for stage monitor applications, I actually preferred it, as I loved having the extra aux/groups. A further benefit was that every other artist was mixed on a digital console, converted back to analogue and then back to digital in the system processors. For the Peppers, I went straight into the processors and eliminated an A/D, D/A conversion which I felt gave the Peppers a sonic clarity advantage. Oh, plus it is really fun mixing big sound on little boards!"

Midas
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