Alex Clare Rocks the V Festival with HARMAN Soundcraft Vi6 Digital Consoles

LONDON, United Kingdom – Singer-songwriter Alex Clare headlined the Future Stage at the recent V Festival in Celmsford Essex, with The Old Lion Touring Company providing a pair of HARMAN Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles for FOH and monitors.

According to Alex Clare’s FOH engineer Harry Devenish, Clare’s performances showcase a human approach to electronic music. “Alex’s performances fuse the weight and power of electronic records with live elements,” he said. “A lot of that is due to the bass setup—the bass guitars trigger a synth and a sub, creating a heavy, dynamic sound on stage.”

Devenish has significant depth of experience with the Soundcraft Vi6, having used one of the first models several years ago. “I come from more of an analog background and was slow to embrace digital, but I’ve always been comfortable with the Vi6,” he said. “It has a very intuitive surface, with hands-on encoders and two layers, it’s very flexible. You can do a lot on the Vi that you can’t do on other digital desks.”

“Vi Series consoles are so easy to work on,” said Tim Boardman, Tour Manager for The Old Lion Touring Company. “I’m from the studio world but I can walk up to the Vi6 and make it work, which is saying something!”

This fall, Old Lion will provide a Vi3000 and Vi6 console for a 10-week tour with Clare, where Boardman and Devenish plan on using the Soundcraft Realtime Rack library of plug-ins from Universal Audio. “We’re really excited about using the Realtime Rack library,” Boardman noted. “Bringing those effects that are predominantly used in studio settings to live performances makes a lot of sense.”

“Realtime Rack will be massive for us!” Devenish remarked. “The Vi6 is already a convenient console to work on and this will take the performance up another level.”

HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets premier audio, visual, infotainment and integrated control solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets. With leading brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon® and Mark Levinson ®, the Company is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of approximately 16,000 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $5.3 billion for the twelve months ended June 30, 2014.

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Christian Worship Center Upgrades with HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi6 Digital Console

MANTECA, California – The Christian Worship Center in Manteca, California recently purchased a HARMAN Soundcraft Vi6 digital console to better accommodate the Sunday and Wednesday services at its 2,000-seat venue. While most of the Center’s previous equipment was analog, current Lead Sound Engineer Bill Clark relayed how the construction goal was to implement state of the art sound reinforcement gear through digital technology. Hence, the church set stringent design requirements for the new console and with the assistance of San Francisco’s Novo Group and consultant Art Yeap, it was determined only the Vi6 could satisfy.

As a serviceman with 35 years in the U.S. Army, the last 18 in the Army Music Program, Clark is also responsible for the sound reinforcement of his Army unit, the 191st Army Band in Dublin, California. Having experienced Soundcraft as one of his first digital consoles in the past, he appreciates the brand and recommends Vi Series consoles for their channel capacity, rich feature set and cost-to-performance ratio.

Additionally, the Christian Worship Center plans to create a production company utilizing its current platform for theater and music. In order to suit the audio needs of artists and actors, the owners required a well-polished MADI implementation of the new console. The Vi6 can more than provide for this need, as Clark recently demonstrated with the recording of two albums so far.

“We wanted to do a lot of things with our new console, and we went with the Vi6 because it’s superior in many ways,” said Clark. “Whether used for touring or fixed installation, from a safety and logistics standpoint, it cuts the weight and equipment count by so much, allowing us to replace all those equipment racks with onboard features. With regards to capacity, we never reach the limit with our 64x32 mono-outs, despite having a big worship team of eight vocalists, a full-sized band with a horn section and 18 channels of wireless handhelds and body-packs.”

All the feeds are routed into a PC, which gives Clark the ability to come back later and audit the mixes. As an additional benefit, this allows him to train new volunteers more efficiently, leading to more consistent operations of the intuitively designed console. For example, training a student who is obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in music production was as easy for Clark as training his own son, who has had limited sound engineering experience.

“Not only does the console run continuously with no problems [I’ve tested it multiple times on 16 hour runs non-stop], it sounds great!” said Clark. “There are a lot of subtle things that my ears don’t hear anymore, but with a digital signal path, the marvelous compressors and the onboard effects, I can definitely hear the improved clarity. Frankly, it all sounds nothing short of astounding.”

HARMAN designs, manufactures and markets premier audio, visual, infotainment and integrated control solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets. With 15 leading brands, including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon® and Mark Levinson ®, the Company is admired by audiophiles, musicians and the entertainment venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a global workforce of 15,200 people and reported sales of $5.1 billion for the last 12 months ended March 31, 2014.

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First Alliance Church Takes Massive Leap Forward with HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi6 Console

(Left) Wayne Jeschke, Technical Associate, First Alliance
Church; and (Right) Paul Nadeau-Bonilla, Technical
Director of Environments, First Alliance Church.

CALGARY, Canada – The First Alliance Church in Calgary is home to a 75-year-old sanctuary that seats 1,700 people. The size of its congregation, combined with the various styles of music and dynamic worship services, prompted Technical Director of Environments Paul Nadeau-Bonilla to recently upgrade the Church’s audio system with HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi6 digital console, installed by Sapphire Sound in Vancouver, B.C.

The Church hosts full orchestras, choirs and bands, on top of its annual Broadway-style Christmas musical. The Vi6 was chosen for its ability to accommodate and switch seamlessly between all types of productions with minimal setup times and clutter. With 96 inputs to 35 output channels, the Vi6 is capable of handling any large-sized venue with ease.

“Before buying the Vi6, we researched flagship models from many other brands,” said Nadeau-Bonilla. “From an ergonomic standpoint, the Vi6 is head and shoulders above all the other consoles. The intuitive layout and visual appearance drastically improves our workflow, and the onboard features are really easy to work with, unlike some of the confusing navigation on other digital consoles.”

The Soundcraft Vi6 pushes boundaries by empowering the user with features that improve ease of use, rather than the culmination of controls that get lost in endless menus. The beautiful ‘knobs-on-glass’ controls sit on top of the Vistonics™II channel strip interface, providing users with the most unadulterated monitoring and mixing experience. TheSoundcraftFaderGlow™ color-coded illumination for the faders is particularly eye-catching, and gives the user an additional level of status indication, significantly reducing operating errors.

“The details in the layout of the Vi6 are amazing,” according to Wayne Jeschke, Associate of Technical Arts. “Someone can run wireless microphones and orchestra at the same time, while the Cue Advance buttons and Snapshots are readily available and well within reach. We wanted something as user-friendly and analog-like as possible, and I believe the Vi6 hits the sweet spot. Even some of our non-technical engineers are able to work on it flawlessly.”

“We did not expect the sound to be this good,” Jeschke continued. “The difference in clarity from our older board is so great, that we get compliments from numerous untrained people all the time. The user-friendliness combined with a clean, natural sound makes the Vi6 an extraordinary console within its class. It blew us away.”

HARMAN designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of 14,800 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.7 billion for the last twelve months ended December 31, 2013.

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