Sam Roberts Band on tour with INNOVASON

12 December 2008 14.15 BST

(Canada) - Sam Roberts Band's are touring with a front-of-house INNOVASON Sy80 manned by engineer Phil Hornung, whilst a INNOVASON Sy48 is used by monitor engineer and tour manager, Denton Fraser.

Phil Hornung is already an INNOVASON veteran, having been around INNOVASON since working on the pre-production for the Barenaked Ladies and Gordon Lightfoot tours in 2001, when INNOVASON was first introduced to the Canadian market.

Hornung explained that he and the production team looked at many different console brands and configuration possibilities before deciding on an INNOVASON solution. “The combinations of the sound quality, digital split option, ease of use. The fact that Denton, myself, and our stage-manager Darrell Cooper, who also is very involved with the monitor mix, all had experience with the console previously, was also a compelling factor.”

“The input delay is a big one that is often overlooked,” he adds. “For things like kick drums with two mics, or bass rigs with a direct line and a mic on the speaker cabinet, it allows you to align the two signals, which are nearly always out of alignment to start. Many consoles have a delay feature, but I think INNOVASON has the most accurate type being able to measure by distance, time, or samples. Also, I think two of the best features of the system were the ones added this past year: the UM8-PO output card, and the FM8-VB internal effects card. The ability to have one output card that can manage both analogue and digital signals is a great feature, and of course the 31-band graphic EQ per channel is also great, especially since you can use all 31 bands on the same page. Also having the FX card has been wonderful. The architecture of the FM8-VB where you have 4 DSP slots for each audio channel is brilliant. It really allows you to control the sound in just the way you want to.”

“We also love not having to carry a traditional split system,” he continues. “We use one distant rack on a muxipair system that feeds the audio to both FoH and monitor consoles on coax cable, so it’s really easy to set up. We are planning to use the same configuration for our 2009 tour because it has worked so well for us.”

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