Friends Of Mine Festival

The classical British setting of Capesthorne Hall, Cheshire, with its Jacobean style house and Georgian chapel sits idyllically in over 100 acres of parkland. For one weekend in May however, the scene usually more akin to a Bronte novel became the setting of a new rock festival.

FOMFest, or Friends Of Mine Festival to give it its full name, boasted an impressive line-up, perhaps even more so considering it’s a brand new venture. Festival founder Sam Gardner has successfully achieved his goal of putting on a camping festival as close to Manchester as possible. He told the BBC last year that his motivation behind FOMFest stemmed from Manchester being the nation’s music capital despite not having a festival to call its own. This was something he aimed to change.

Gardner, with the help of The Charlatans’ front man Tim Burgess, curated a selection of bands from the Mancunian music scene with acts such as Kid British, Badly Drawn Boy, The Buzzcocks, The Fall, Dutch Uncles, Bad Lieutenant, Kong and A Certain Ratio. Acts from further a-field included The Cribs, Yuck and The Black Lips.

Despite some typically British weather, spirits were riding high as Paul Nicholson of Red Square Audio / Midas ProSound handled audio over FOM’s four main stages. The equipment he specified for the main stage in particular included three Innovason Eclipse digital mixing consoles and APG’s line array system, Uniline.

Two Eclipses were used for FOH and a third Eclipse was placed on stage at the monitor position. Innovason engineer, Eddy Josse, assisted the touring engineers with the console set up, meanwhile Andy Reeves tended to monitor duties.

Nicholson and his team put the four stages in with the help of APG, Innovoson and Apex. He said: “It’s basically a Red Square Audio stage. I can’t stress enough how my distributors have supported me on this. We do have 30 crew on site, so they have to invest.”
The investment paid off as both crew and attendees alike were raving about FOM’s sound quality.

“The consoles did a sterling job and were incredibly well received by all of the engineers who used them, both at FOH and monitors,” confirmed Nicholson. “Almost everyone commented on how easy they were to use, which is so important in a festival set-up where the pressure is really on. The Eclipse is one of the best-sounding consoles on the market today, and the combination of the Eclipse with the APG Uniline system made for a great sound.” Nicholson describes the typical festival set up as a “shop window” in which manufacturers are able to display their goods.

The kit making all the fuss at FOMFest was the APG Uniline line array system – the biggest used in the UK to date – made up of UL210 cabinets, UL210D down fills and UL155B bass cabs.  On monitors was APG’s SMX15s and the Apex kit comprised two of the Intelli-X 48s models.

Each side of FOH had nine UL210s, two UL210Ds and eight UL155Bs, while 16 TB218S’s made up the subs (four each side and eight in front of stage).

The APG system on stage was made up of SMX15 (six units for most bands), DX15 (two units for drum fill), TB118S (two units for drum fill) and 3000C (two units for front fill).

On racks, processing consisted of six APG DMS26 digital processors and amplification was equipped by ten Powersoft K6s, two K8s and two K10s.

PARTY APPROVAL
A big plus of using the Eclipse desks (for this boutique window with a comfortable 10,000 capacity) was the surprising ease of use for first-time users.  “We have two Innovoson consoles so that when an engineer is on one, we’d be preparing the other one. It worked really well,” noted Nicholson.

“When the sound engineers walk up having never seen the desk before, it’s all done  – all the channeling and EQing was sorted with an Apex console EQing the system.

This method worked out well for both parties, and The Cribs sound engineer Paul Fyfe shared the sentiment. He revealed: “It was my first time using an Eclipse and I thought the desk sounded great. I really enjoyed using it and have even added it to my production specs for future festivals, so I hope to be using it again very soon!”

The integrated multitrack M.A.R.S. recording system was also put to good use throughout the duration of the festival. “M.A.R.S. is just such a great tool,” enthused Fyfe. “It was there for any of the bands who wanted to make use of it – and many did.

Just a couple of mouse clicks ensure that up to 64 tracks are recorded onto the internal (removable) hard drive. All the engineer has to do is download it onto their PC / Mac, mix it, and put it online.”
Bands multitracked and the recordings were then put on a server SATA drive on the console allowing the artists to download their set and remix it in Protools for example. The results can be uploaded to whatever outlet they chose.

In the bigger picture, further juggling lay ahead as Nicholson ran all the stages at FOM. “I’ve been responsible for 120 bands over four stages. It’s a big task and it’s a challenging job, but we did a lot of preparation and organising. I do have a very efficient crew!”

Nicholson himself is at the helm of such efficiency, constantly evolving with the schedule during busy events such as this. He said: “On the load in, I was already thinking about the load out, the trucks and crew. You have to plan ahead all the time.”

TEAM WORK
A strong team was in place for all elements of production, eliminating the need for Nicholson to dash between stages, looking after his crew.

With a big focus on the audio of  the main stage, APG was again specified for stage monitoring using a combination of SMX15 and DX15 monitor wedges plus TB118 subs and M3000 side fills, which for monitor engineer Reeves, provided thorough job satisfaction.

As the bands continued to play to growing crowds despite the April showers (of hailstones!) creeping quickly into May, the crew remained happy. APG’s Mathieu Delquignies assisted Nicholson with any tuning requirements on the Uniline in order to battle the worsening weather conditions.

“It is great to have such amazing support from the manufacturer,” insists Nicholson. “We were particularly pleased to have Mathieu with us on this occasion, firstly because it’s the biggest Uniline system we’ve had out in the UK to date, and secondly because we really weren’t helped by the weather that weekend – we had strong, blustery winds to contend with for most of the set up and show days, which turned gale-force on Sunday. It’s a challenge making any system sound good under those conditions, but Mathieu and the team did a great job, and the results were truly stunning.”

For FOMFest, Paul specified L and R hangs of nine UL210 full range mid/hi cabinets supplemented by two UL210D down fill cabinets and eight UL155B bass cabinets with a total of 16 TB218S dual 18” subwoofers  (four units beneath each hang and eight across the front of the stage).

APG was also in evidence on stage, where bands benefited from a combination of 16 SMX15 wedges supplemented by two DX15 drum fill monitor speakers plus two TB118S subs. A pair of 3000Cs were also used for side fills. APG DMS26 digital loudspeaker processors handled DSP throughout.

A PEFECT STORM
With winds of over 70 mph occurring on site over night, Nicholson and his team had to take the main stage down and re-build it for the Sunday finale in order to create the smoothest production for Sunday headliners, The Charlatans.

Although this may seem like a tough situation, the festival’s audio wasn’t really in any danger thanks to the equipment requested for the job.

Nicholson explained: “Having done a lot of festivals in the past, I have to say that the APG line array is pretty immune to wind shifts. It’s like having a giant phaser. Going through the APG is great. We spent some time tuning the system for the sub bass - you want to make sure you have an even covering, especially on a slopping field with this kind of wind.”

Arguably unusual behavior for a line array system, the sound victory at the festival throughout the weekend has left Nicholson beaming. “I think that APG proved without a doubt at FOMFest that Uniline is a system to be reckoned with and deserves its place amongst the “big names” in the industry. Our aim was to provide coherent coverage with constant directivity throughout the listening area, up to a distance of 75 metres from the stage.

 “We achieved that easily – in fact, we might need to rein it in a bit for next year! However, the compact modular design of the system means that it can be adapted to pretty much any sized event, large or small, so it’s a really versatile system for any rental inventory.”

With the huge success following Manchester’s newest festival, Nicholson’s parting words are ones of gratitude and relief:
“Our trio of products combined like no other to produce the highest quality result. Having system engineered and mixed at all the big festivals over the years it was extremely rewarding to be able to do everything exactly how I wanted via the fantastic support from APG, Innovason, and Apex.”
TPi

Photography by Tom Martin

www.tmooose.co.uk

www.fomfest.com