In fact, the whole 'machine', as crew chief Onno Ooms describes it, is the same as for Take That, with the SD7s and the rest of the tour's audio requirements supplied by Newbury-based rental company Skan PA. "I'm using an SD7 because I wouldn't use anything else," says Gary Bradshaw. "On a tour this size there's nothing better. I've used the SD7 a lot, so I know it inside out and I set it up the same every time, which makes life easy and means I can find things quickly. We have around 80 inputs and I've got left, right and sub for outputs. We have three hangs of speakers either side of the stage and flown subs, front-fills and ground-subs, then there's a delay system all the way round. It's very straightforward really."
Gary is recording everything, at Jeff Lynne's request, and running at 96k. "What's slightly unusual is that the very first time I met Jeff, which was right before the Hyde Park gig, before he even said hello, he said, 'can we have no effects on anything please?' And more specifically, no reverb, particularly not on the strings. Then he said 'hello, how are you doing? It's just his thing. There are a couple of little delays, but other than that there are no effects at all, which takes a bit of getting used to, but he just wants clarity and the SD7 allows me to give him that.
"Steve Jay, Jeff's studio engineer, is out with us. He knows everything backwards, so it's good having him around. We're trying to get as close to the original sound as possible."
Over in monitor world, Steve Lutley uses an SD7. His set-up comprises 14 stereo in-ear mixes, including techs, and a stereo wedge mix for Milton McDonald on guitar.
"I also run the whole shout system and all band member talk microphones through the console to try and make communication during a show as simple as possible," he says. "The fact that we moved Jeff over to in-ear monitors for the first time meant that for this tour, more than ever, I needed a versatile console to be able to achieve all the 'production' type qualities and subtle changes for each track (and sometimes during) that a world-class producer is listening for."
(Jim Evans)
