M-480 Used In Cascade For Live Orchestra At Proms In The Park

The Proms, which took place for one night only in Bedford, saw stars such as Aled Jones and Natasha Marsh performing live alongside the London Gala Orchestra at what has become a popular outdoor event for classical enthusiasts.  The combination of a great line up and good weather meant that this year’s event, which was organized by The Full Effect, attracted a record number of people.

‘We chose Roland because it is a scalable package and we have the options of using one or two desks or cascading two desks together – we also have all the Digital Snake stage boxes to choose from- there are so many options that all fit together easily.  Once you’ve set up the desk you just plug in the stage boxes and they find each other – there is no complicated programming required as the desk recognizes each one as you connect it.  That saves us time and money’, commented Jason Price, owner of JAP Sound.
 
JAP Sound took full advantage of the flexibility and scalability of the Roland products, putting together a fully digital setup which used two x  M-480 digital consoles and Digital Snake products networked together using REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication).

Using the M-480’s in a cascade allowed JAP to use a large format mixing system, in this case up to 96 mixing channels, with minimum footprint.  Easy to configure, a cascade connection facilitates data communication between two M-480 consoles via a single Cat5e/6 cable which is connected to the REAC ports on the console. 

‘The Roland solution is great – it’s a ‘gig in a box’ – the weight is minimal and we use CAT5 cable – setting it all up is easy but breaking it down is even easier!’

REAC is Roland’s original technology for low latency, high quality digital audio transferring up to 40 channels of audio in each direction at 24-bit and up to 96kHz including control messages over a single Cat5e/6 cable or optical link. By converting analog inputs to 24-bit digital streams at the stage end via high quality mic preamps, a REAC system generates superior sound quality and eliminates bulk and noise of analog snakes. Feeding everything into the console, the integrity of the audio signal is maintained throughout the system path.

The two M-480 live consoles were used at FOH position to the main stage area, which was packed with around forty musicians and 40 choir members all at the same time. 
 
On the stage itself an S-4000S Digital Snake rack was configured with 40 inputs using 10 x SIAD-4 4 channel analog input module cards which were connected to the REAC B port of the M-480 CASCADE MASTER console. 
 
Also on the main stage, JAP installed an S-4000M REAC Merge Unit to REAC A on the M-480 CASCADE SLAVE to merge the stream of the 3 x S-0808 (8 x 8 I/O Unit) and one S-1608 Stage Unit providing an additional 40 inputs.  The S-4000M also provided REAC Embedded Power to each of the S-0808 stage boxes reducing the need to run mains distribution.
 
A separate S-0816 FOH Unit took care of the sends to the PA system and monitor mixes connected as a split from REAC B of the M-480 CASCADE MASTER console via a S-4000D Splitter and Power Distribution unit.

‘We were very pleased with the sound quality and also received good comments from our client– the quality is more than comparable with more expensive products and we will happily use this setup again’.