Milk Inc.

For anyone unfamiliar with the logistics of Belgium’s rock and pop business, Flemish dance/pop sensations Milk Inc’s recent run of six shows at the 17,000-capacity Sportpaleis confirm that, when it comes to the six million Flemish population, you can forget conventional music industry wisdom.

    Their sales here were proportionately the equivalent of a British band selling out the new Wembley Stadium for 12 consecutive nights. Big business, credit crunch or not.

    EML Productions, the main production contractor, provided the Adamson PA and the remainder of the audio system, as well as the shows’ lighting, centred around some 100 Vari*Lite VL2500 and VL3500 luminaires, while an extensive video system featured a giant 150m2 Martin Professional LED backdrop screen and video projection.

    All the more interesting, then, to find Milk Inc’s megashows at the acoustically-challenged Sportpaleis mixed on the FOH faders of a solitary Digidesign D-Show Profile, by respected engineer Peter Claes — a man renowned for his analogue tastes, in particular the Midas XL4.

    Digidesign distributor Ampco Belgium provided training and support, and Claes commented: “I must really thank the people from Ampco Belgium and Digidesign, because they gave me great support on getting to know the desk and using the plug-ins. Without them the show would simply not be the same show. So I’m very, very grateful; the service was exceptional... and I think the results were, too.”

    Now 37, Claes’ career started with his father’s band 21 years ago and progressed through work for his local bands and PA company, before landing freelance engineering work with EML.

    “I’m now just mixing but that experience gave me a lot of system knowledge,” he said. “You have to understand speaker systems to be a good engineer, just as you have to be a little bit of a musician to understand music and how to do a mix.”

    Milk Inc kicked off 10 years ago as a dance band and enjoying immediate chart success with their own material, their live gigs taking the form of playback shows. A decision three years ago to go fully live was a success, leading to three Sportpaleis nights in 2007 and this year’s six. Suddenly, it’s big in every sense.

    The core band of Regi Penxten and Linda Mertens is now augmented live by Roland Europe product specialists and multi-instrumentalists Peter Scheurs and Michael Schack, brought on board after Milk Inc turned to Roland for help in taking their studio set-up on the road, along with their producer, Philip Vandueren.

    Igor Dockx mixes monitors on a DiGiCo D5 while the band — aside from guest guitarist John Miles Jr. — are exclusively on Sennheiser SR3256 series in-ears and Shure UHF-R wireless mics.

    Also on hand for the shows were crew chief/system engineer Leen Frijters, FOH assistant Sebastien Oeyen, Digidesign tech Pieter Helsen, monitor assistant and RF tech Jo Heylen and stage sound manager Rahel Feidler.

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Claes, whose extensive CV includes Night Of The Proms and collaborative work with Patrick Demoustier on Simple Minds, explained his decision to go digital: “Because there are so many digital instruments on stage, I wanted to keep the signal digital all the way to the amps.

    “I’m a great fan of the Midas XL4 so everyone was like, ‘Peter’s going digital — he must be crazy because he always said he wouldn’t’. I’m also a fan of analogue outboard gear, like the old Teletronics and Tube-Tech stuff that I normally use, but now as plug-ins. So Digidesign was the answer for all my problems because with plug-ins I can colour whatever I want, whereas an ‘ordinary’ digital desk is only one colour.

    “Since Milk Inc are very plug-in heavy in the studio it’s very interesting for me to use the same plug-ins from the studio live, effectively using the same effects as I would use in the analogue world. And, because it’s fixed point processing, you have a good gain structure like on an analogue desk.

    “Both keyboard players’ outputs are submixed digitally, and it’s AES/EBU from the desk to the crossovers. It only becomes analogue at the input of the amps — only one D/A conversion, no A/D conversion.”

    A Mac provides extra tracks for loops, some vocal effects and bass lines. Everything relevant syncs up to an Apogee Big Ben Master Clock while Claes receives MTC for delay timing and in-scene programme changes.

    “Other good points for me about the Digidesign Profile,” continued Claes, “are that you can hook up a standard Pro Tools system to it for pre-production at home and in rehearsals and soundchecks — a great time saver — and that it’s so compact; when we play festivals just give me 2m x 2m and I’m happy.

    “Karel de Piere at Ampco Belgium was also a bit shocked when he heard I was considering going digital but they gave as much time as we wanted at their new showroom to get the desk in our heads.” The console was supplied by Live 5.

    The PA comprised 16 Adamson Y-18 tops per side, 18 EML S318s subs and Martin F2 bass cabs. Claes: “They give me a little of that punchy horn-loaded double 15” power that you need to feel the beat. And since we are running everything now on digital it sounds amazing. It’s like the cover came off the speakers; the top end has much more headroom, everything is so clear.”

    The Lab.gruppen-powered rig, including 16 Adamson Spectrix front/outfills and a further 16 EML array delays, is driven by three XTA DP448s and Apex Intelli-X crossovers over AES/EBU, with splits for the complex Martin Audio and Peavey MediaMatrix distributed house system.

    At FOH, the system is completed by a Midas XL42 dual mic pre-amp and a BSS DPR901 for Mertens’ vocals, with a Focusrite ISA 220 Session Pack dedicated to Penxten’s mic. The XL42’s second channel is reserved for guest vocalists, and an Eventide H3000 is always to hand.

    Complications? Peter Claes has one: the small matter of the B-stage descending on chain motors to squat over the lighting desk directly behind his console, at which point the FOH team find themselves in the glare of massed follow spots while trying to shield their finely-tuned ears from a cacophony of screams.

    Did we mention that Milk Inc are popular in Belgium?

TPi
Photography by
Mike Lethby