Broadcast News

Bookmark and Share
03/02/2020

Snow Patrol Relies On SSL L550 Console

News Image
Snow Patrol recently embarked on a UK tour for their album, Reworked, relying on an SSL L550 console for their live shows, including two special performances at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Northern Irish-Scottish rock band, Snow Patrol formed in 1994, rising to fame with their album, Final Straw, which was certified five-times platinum in the UK, eventually selling over three million copies worldwide. Their next studio album, Eyes Open, included hit single, Chasing Cars, which is said to be the most widely played song of the 21st century on UK radio.

Reworked, Snow Patrol's eighth studio album, was released in November 2019 to celebrate their 25th anniversary, and included reimagined versions of old songs, three new tracks, and a tour, which Matt West joined last year as FOH engineer.

"It's a 14-piece band and a very open, live stage; the band has reworked songs to a certain extent, so it's a new take, with new instruments on already fantastic songs," West explained. "Everyone's got a vocal mic, and the guys are all on in-ears, as we're keeping things as quiet as possible on stage."

When West first heard about SSL's live offering, he was immediately intrigued.

"I knew if SSL was going to put out a live range of consoles, they would capture the trust of the old school analogue vibe; once upon a time, you’d do everything you could just to save up to buy one preamp and record everything through it," he said. "So I looked at what SSL were doing, saw that the L550 had a big screen and big buttons, and being a big-fingered person, little buttons are ineffective for me, so it looked very interesting straight away. I spent a few days just mixing on the board, and I just kind of fell in love with it."

What West admires about the SSL desk is that he doesn’t need to add any plugins to make it sound better.

"I see lots of people using plugins and bringing all these external things to add to supplement digital desks, but I don't do anything with the L550 other than what's on board, and that's what I love about it,” he declares. “It does everything that I need, and the recent SSL software updates have made it even faster to navigate through internally. It just sounds fantastic."

In analogue world, West was always a fan of subgroups, so the SSL Stem functionality has been a no-brainer for him: "Being an analogue person, I still refer to them as groups, but the SSL Stems work great; I'll always pair up my kick drums, then compress the group just to get some nice closeness; and I'm also using Stems for the strings, the brass, and the acoustic guitars, as there are a lot of them – I simply go in and slap the SSL Buss Compressor across the stereo – it does everything I need it to do, it's beautiful, and keeps everyone gelled together. There are so many backing vocals on this tour that I've separated all of those out too, letting [lead singer] Gary [Lightbody] exist on his own, so I've pulled the backing vocals into one Stem, which I've found has opened up the mix quite a lot."

According to West, the L550 is very 'honest-sounding' in the EQ section, in that it sounds particularly clean on acoustic instruments.

"I've really got to be able to get in there and nail down some frequencies to be able to try and get the level before they're going to feedback," he explained. "You can obviously only turn things up so loud to get strings dynamic enough to sit above a decent level band, so you need to be able to get into your EQs and look really closely – and I can hear what I'm doing without any issues whatsoever, whereas with some other consoles, you can find you're trying to find a frequency, so you punch it up, flip it backwards and forwards, and you've almost got to add 15dB to hear what the EQ is doing! With the SSL, you can just do it straight away via the screen; throw it up and move it up and down again, and there it is!"

West describes the desk's All-Pass-Filter as one of the 'heroes' on the desk, as it allows him to select the frequency specific phase alteration:

"That's amazing, that thing," he enthuses. "It has absolutely fantastic applications because normally you'd go, 'okay, let's see if the two kick drums sound better if I punch one of them out of phase', but with that, you're either losing clarity, or your punch is gone. Using the All-Pass-Filter means I can just choose which one sounds better, go back to the ALL-Pass-Filter, dial it back to what I liked when it was in-phase, choose my favourite, and then add to it. When I have an opportunity to use it for what it's designed for, I think, 'How did I ever live without it?' You can try it out on everything, and it's a very key feature for me."

Using the SSL Buss Compressor on the reverb also impresses the FOH engineer every time:

"As it's a digital desk, we don't have to throw everything down the same unit anymore, so if I want a longer tail on a reverb instead of mucking around with one I've already dialled in, or going into scenes and changing stuff that way, I just put another reverb up and dial it in because they all stay warm and rich sounding."

And the Tape Echo simply 'sounds awesome', he said: "It sounds really old school, and the combination of that with new technology means that it sounds old on a new piece of kit; it sounds warm and super analogue, and it's a digital desk. That to me is pretty unbelievable!"

West is using the L550 alongside the SSL ML 32.32 analogue stagebox.

"That's a great piece of kit; we're using two for the existing setup of the band. I said 'Well, I'll just have another 32 SSL preamps please!' It’s a splitter as well, which is great; we use the MADI out of that to send people the full console breakdown when they need it."

Ultimately, West says he is just enjoying being able to get hands-on with his mixing and not having to worry about racks of outboard.

www.solidstatelogic.com

Image: Bradley Quinn
VMI.TV Ltd

Top Related Stories
Click here for the latest broadcast news stories.

28/08/2024
Dolby Atmos Upgrade For KoKo Sound Studios
KoKo Sound Studios, one of the most sought-after mixing facilities in South Korea, has invested in a Prism Sound Dream ADA-128 multichannel converter
06/07/2006
Soundscape products to augment SSL line-up
Solid State Logic has deepened its support for workstation users with the purchase of Sydec Audio Engineering NV, developers of the Soundscape range o
07/11/2024
Riedel's MediaorNet Real-Time Network Deployed By East Shore Sound
Riedel Communications has announced that its MediorNet real-time network was successfully deployed by East Shore Sound to support Comedy Central's 'Th
15/10/2024
DPA Brings Sound Engineer Robert Czyżewicz Vision To Life
Renowned Sound Engineer Robert Czyżewicz, celebrated for his innovative approach to sound in cinema, has once again delivered an auditory masterp
10/10/2024
Lawo Virtual Sound Card For macOS 14 Sanoma Now Available
Lawo has announced the availability of the Lawo Virtual Sound Card (VSC) for macOS 14 (Sonoma) and later. This versatile virtual audio device enables
02/07/2013
Solid State Logic Appoints Live Consoles VP
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Jay Easley as Vice President of Live Consoles in the Americas. Previously with Midas and Klark Tekn
23/05/2024
Metropolis Studios Upgrades To Prism Sound Dream ADA-128 Audio Conversion
With 25 Prism Sound ADA-8XR multichannel converters already in use across its five studios, the internationally acclaimed Metropolis Studios in London
22/05/2024
Joshua Blair To Share Industry Knowledge At Prism Sound's 8 Hours At Rockfield
Producer and engineer Joshua Blair and mastering engineer Nick Watson will be sharing their music industry knowledge and expertise at Prism Sound's 8
03/11/2006
Duende Now Available For Purchase From Solid State Logic
Solid State Logic announce the imminent availability of Duende for PC and new generation Intel processor Apple Mac users. Ever since its launch in Jun
08/05/2014
Parisian Creative Sound Selects SSL Consoles
Three Solid State Logic C300 HD Master Studio Systems and one C10 HD have been selected by Creative Sound, a Parisian post production facility serving
11/04/2013
SSL Launches Live Sound Console
Solid State Logic has announced the launch of 'Live' - the first SSL console for live sound production, at Musikmesse/Prolight + Sound 2013 (Hall 5.1,
05/05/2006
Creative Sound’s new SSL C300 console goes down a storm in Paris
Producers and engineers working in Creative Sound’s Theatre C are thrilled with the Solid State Logic C300 digital production console, which was insta
16/12/2005
SSL buys Prism Sound dScope
Solid State Logic, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of high-end analogue and digital consoles, has taken delivery of its 11th Prism Sound dScope
22/11/2005
Creative Sound order first SSL C300 digital production console
Leading post production company Creative Sound has become the first facility in Europe to order Solid State Logic’s (SSL) new C300 digital production
03/05/2013
SSL C100 HDS Digital Broadcast Console Makes Classical Music Sing
A Solid State Logic (SSL) C100 HDS Digital Broadcast Console has been chosen to make classical music sing for the new Musik und Theater (MuTh) Concert