Total Audio go live with Pyramix

If you’ve ever gone to a great live gig and wished afterwards that you could own a completely legal, professional recording of the evening, you may soon have reason to thank Live Here Now.
The UK company are one of several now offering concert-goers the opportunity to buy CDs or downloads of live shows, but unlike many of the recent newcomers, Live Here Now have already recorded nights on high-profile international tours by major acts like Mylo, Moby, Goldfrapp, Erasure and Depeche Mode. And at the heart of the recording system that makes it all possible are two of Merging Technologies’ Pyramix digital audio workstations, supplied by Merging’s UK distributor, Total Audio Solutions.
Capturing an entire show on hard disk every night and then making the recordings available to the public is no mean technical feat. Some of the newer live concert CD companies cut corners by simply recording the live stereo front-of-house mix directly and burning it to CD, but Live Here Now insist on a more demanding approach for a more professional result. On Depeche Mode’s recent world tour — LHN’s most complex production to date — the recording team took a multichannel MADI feed from the front-of-house desk, and supplemented it with eight channels from their own audience mics. The entire audio stream was then recorded to 64 discrete tracks on the custom twin-Pyramix recording system built by Total Audio, so that it could be mixed professionally after the concert.
Assisting the Live Here Now team is veteran UK live recording and mixing engineer Will Shapland, who originally suggested using Merging’s Pyramix, and helped Total Audio to specify the system. “We needed something that could handle a 56-channel MADI feed from the front-of-house desk. Pro Tools doesn’t offer MADI interfacing as standard, and Pyramix does,” said Will. “Also, in my experience, Pyramix has proved to be the most reliable of the DAWs I’ve used live over the past six years. In terms of budget and practicalities, it was my first choice.”
The Live Here Now team travel all over the world recording concerts, so clearly Total Audio had to specify a readily portable system — and in the end, they got it into four compact, carefully designed flightcases. The most important contains the two Pyramix systems, a Drawmer central word clock, and the RME MADI interfacing required to take the multichannel digital feed from the front-of-house desk. The second case contains a Sony SIU-100 interface and remote box with all the required mic preamps and A-D converters, plus monitoring so that the Live Here Now engineers can check the incoming MADI digital audio stream. The third flightcase contains the supplementary LHN audience mics and cables, while the final case contains the all-important system hard drives. Each night’s concert is recorded to a main 120GB drive in Pyramix multitrack format, and also simultaneously to a 500GB backup drive. After each gig, the main 120GB drive is replaced with an empty one in readiness for the next day, while the old drive containing that evening’s multitrack recordings is sent for mixing at Will Shapland’s studio.
Mixing and mastering, which is done via an SSL MT desk, takes a day on Will’s Pyramix system, then the finished stereo recording is taken directly to a CD pressing plant. Live Here Now customers receive their recordings within 28 days of the original concert.
“There are easier, cheaper ways of achieving what Live Here Now do,” admitted Will Shapland, “but this Pyramix system allows us to mix a much better-sounding end result.”
Live Here Now Project Director M.J. added: “Total Audio specified and supplied the complete system really quickly after talking to Will, and it was very reasonable, too. It was also reliable, which is what you need for demanding projects like this. The Pyramix system has suffered one minor crash in more than 50 gigs, and one microphone has failed. In both cases, Total Audio sorted us out in no time. It was a pleasure working with them.”
(GB)