But the Welshman was savvy enough to listen to the recommendation from his friend Richard Jackson, who recounted that he had used Digidesign's D-Show live console while mixing Welsh band Super Furry Animals.
From that point things moved quickly into gear, so that by the time the UK mainland tour commenced at the Glasgow Academy, the sound engineers from all four bands had become willing converts.
Two companies had provided the catalyst for this: Digidesign resellers Marquee Audio, and the tour's sound production company Stage Audio Services, who were more than happy to accommodate the desk - supplied with a mobile Pro Tools HD2 recording package for archiving - into their full production rig.
Marquee Audio's Andy Huffer says: "First we arranged some training for James with Digidesign's Robb Allan in our demo room. The Stage Audio Services system techs then saw the desk, and once they had given it the thumbs up it made sense to introduce it to the other sound engineers."
James Lawrenson himself contacted the other FOH technicians - Chris McCarron from The View, Christian Bayley from Mumm-Ra and Dave Cooper and Darren Mullis from The Horrors - to arrange hands-on experience at Marquee's Shepperton HQ.
Unable to attend in person, McCarron simply provided Andy Huffer with his input channel list and preferred FX, enabling the Marquee man to create a profile. "Nevertheless," says Huffer, "although the engineers were able to build their show templates you can't put a desk like this out with no support - particularly when there were no production rehearsals, and the first time they'd use it in anger would be on the Glasgow gig."
The next step was to enlist the talents of experienced Venue sound engineer Jim Warren, who first spent a day with the Stage Audio Services system techs. "We needed a safe pair of hands on site at Glasgow Academy, and he was able to help build the templates and ease everybody into the desk on the night."
The sound engineers were already familiar with studio plug-ins - and were able to flip comfortably between the onboard EQ and dynamics processors and the suite of classic reverbs and delays offered by the Pro Tools TDM plug-ins. In addition there was the vast palette of 'specials' for vocal treatment such as the Pultec EQ and Fairchild compressors.
They collectively praised the range of options, sonic characteristics, ease of use and warmth - as well as the time it was handing back to them by being able to conduct virtual soundchecks.
Chris McCarron says: "The first time I got on the desk, I just pushed up the kick drum channel fader, and it sounded great before I'd touched anything else." Christian Bayley says: "It's such a forgiving desk because it's so warm and natural sounding without any EQ or processing. If you want to take it a stage further, you can create multiple snapshots and use the plug-ins to faithfully recreate the album mix on this desk."
Andy Huffer concludes: "The NME Awards Indie Rock Tour has consistently proved to be an influential springboard for up-and-coming bands. To have all the sound engineers speaking so glowingly about the mix they have been able to generate with Venue underlines the system's popularity at the emerging end of the market."
(Chris Henry)
