Replacing Gary Bradshaw, who piloted the band's European live tour from the front-of-house position this Summer, Woodhead set up the sound on Venue for the band's exclusive concert at Abbey Road Studios (for a Radio 2 taped broadcast), followed by a one-hour live television recording on London's South Bank for the ITV 1 show An Audience With Take That Live! the following week.
In the first ever live An Audience With, Take That performed hits from their back catalogue - including Relight My Fire - and latest single Patience before a host of celebrity guests.
The sound engineer had first been introduced to Digidesign's live sound environment by one of the system's early adopters, award-winning sound engineer Jim Warren of Nine Inch Nails.
"He is an old friend, and after I had seen him mix the band at the London Astoria, and heard how good it sounded I was intrigued. Ian Nelson from Placebo then started singing its praises," said Woodhead. The third strike came when the sound engineer saw Massive Attack being mixed by another old road colleague, Robb Allen. "I watched the show standing behind him - and at that point I was sold."
Woodhead realised that a stint of dates with All Saints would provide the perfect opportunity to cut his teeth on Venue. Requisitioning Marquee Audio's demo system and an afternoon's tuition with Robb Allen prior to production rehearsals was all he needed. "Robb showed me all the short cuts, tips and tricks - but I could see straight away how intuitive the console was."
The call to mix Take That came from the band's production manager Chris Vaughan, who pulled in Woodhead to mix the one-off spectaculars, including the new material showcase at Abbey Road Studios. "It was a completely new programme and I had to build up the mix from scratch," he said. "Now I just load the show straight on."
For his main reverb Woodhead has been using the TC Electronic VSS3 Stereo Source Reverb - a software version of the reverb ported directly from the legendary System 6000. "It's a highly flexible reverb," says the sound engineer. "There are so many great sounding reverb plug-ins - but I find that if I stick to one block, such as the VSS3, it becomes more DSP efficient."
In addition to the D-Show mainframe, Woodhead's system is supported by two Sidecars and two Stage Racks, carrying no outboard gear whatsoever. "I have a Snapshot for each song, which sets the desk up with the right mix for the start of each number. This makes the whole thing a lot slicker, whereas in the analogue world you would quickly have to move the VCA masters. Snapshots control the reverb times and delays and it takes a lot of stress out of mixing the show."
Most of his plug-in use is directed toward the four vocals of Gary, Mark, Howard and Jason. "Some of the songs have chorussy, sing-along sections and so I've been using [Digidesign's] Voce Spin and Pitch Shift along with the TC Electronic M6000. On top of that I'm using Pultec EQ and then Focusrite d3 over the whole lot - providing a tight block of backing vocals with tons of image and depth.
"Up until now I have always been slightly resistant to digital boards - whether because of stability or sound issues, or both," Woodhead admits. "But Venue satisfies me on both counts. The sound quality is right up there and the desk seems robust. You can put your trust in it - I'll certainly be using this desk again."
(Chris Henry)
