Total Audio And Pyramix Go Down A Storm At Minichill

The two-day Minichill festival, now in its third year, was originally created as a one-off private charity event by the ABC Trust to raise money for the trust's activities assisting the disadvantaged street children of Brazil.
In its second year, the festival became a successful public event, and this year, it moved to a larger site near Marlow in Buckinghamshire.
Despite the conditions, all the music made was captured by two Merging Pyramix digital audio workstations supplied by UK Merging distributors and pro-audio specialists Total Audio Solutions.
The Pyramix systems kept recording even as the rain lashed at them and the high winds threatened to literally blow away the entire PA and recording rig. Though not conceived as such, the festival proved to be an excellent acid test of the Pyramix systems' live multi-channel recording abilities under demanding conditions.
A long list of bands, DJs and VJs performed over the course of the September weekend, including multimedia outfit Hexstatic, live improvisation specialists The Bays, DJs like Tom Currie of Delicatessence, and singer-songwriters like Alice McLaughlin.
Minichill Production Manager Rupert Barksfield was responsible for assembling the sound systems for the event. The main stage was equipped by Harman Pro UK, and as part of this rig, a digital Soundcraft Vi6 mixing console was supplied by Harman for use as the front-of-house sound desk.
Barksfield commented: "The Vi6 has a MADI 64-channel digital connector, and so does Merging's Pyramix multitrack recorder.
"So when Harman suggested recording the festival, it occurred to us that it wouldn't be difficult to just hook up the desk to a Pyramix system via MADI and record the entire multi-channel audio stream to the Pyramix."
When Rupert contacted Merging's UK distributor Total Audio, they were enthusiastic and supplied two Pyramix systems, one for use with the Vi6 and the main stage, the other to record the audio in the DJ/VJ tent. The second of these had the easier job, as it was only recording the stereo output of the DJ mixer in the tent. The main system, however, was recording 56 channels of live 24-bit, 48kHz audio direct from the Vi6 front-of-house desk via the MADI connection.
"We had a few problems with the wind," commented Total Audio's Andrew Wierzan. "At one point, it caught the tent so hard it pulled the main stake right out of the ground, and the whole tent nearly blew away - it was only several of the sound guys grabbing the tent and holding it down that prevented that happening. We lost power to the Pyramix system and so it crashed. But the files that were being recorded right up to the power cut were on the drive when we booted up again - there was no corruption. And after that, we plugged the system into the same uninterruptable power supply that was feeding the Vi6, and we had no more problems recording the rest of the set."
"I was extremely impressed with Pyramix," added Barksfield. "I'm aware that the BBC now use Pyramix systems in most of their outside broadcast trucks, but this was an even more physically demanding situation, and both recorders proved rock solid. I wouldn't hesitate to take Pyramix systems out on the road again. And Total Audio were great - a truly dedicated team. I'll be very happy to use them again at next year's festival."
(DS/CD)