With a relentless touring schedule crossing back and forth across Europe from early April, the band's long-term front of house engineer Mark Kennedy is manning one of two PRO6s from Britannia Row, while the other travels to the next venue with the rest of the system.
Kennedy first used the PRO6 in anger during band rehearsals, using the day's recordings to work on settings after the band had left. With drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, percussion and two backing vocalists, plus the two main vocalists and sequencer, the board's 64 channels were quickly put to use.
"I'm using 56 inputs plus eight returns, so the board is maxed out," he says. "I'm also using all the onboard FX, and I'm very happy with the sounds I'm getting from them. I started with a whole FX rack and by the end of rehearsals there was a big pile of units in the corner.
"The PRO6 has offered a lot more detail to the show. There's a huge amount of difficulty with onstage spill; there are16 channels of large diaphragm condensers on the percussion alone, then a massive side fill rig which is flat out. So it has to be very finely EQ'd, which the PRO6 has excelled at."
After this leg of the tour, which has included many trips across to Eastern European and back, Faithless head out to South America before more dates in Australia and Europe. "We're out until April next year, and I'll probably take an XL8 out for the last six months of the tour," concludes Kennedy.
(Jim Evans)
