Manchester United parades Yamaha CL5

May 13 saw 12,000 people pack into Manchester’s Albert Square and thousands more line the streets as Premier League winners Manchester United travelled from the football club’s Old Trafford stadium to a city centre reception. A Yamaha CL5 helped to deliver a free show by local band The Courteeners, as well as speeches by United team members and staff.
tube UK supplied a complete audio package for the Albert Square stage – including the CL5 and a pair of Rio3224-D I/O units – to Manchester City Council, with the entire event funded by Manchester United.
As well as the band inputs, the system featured microphones for the players and officials to speak from the stage and a Mac Pro for pre-recorded audio playback.
“It was a very functional show – we rigged in the morning, were open for business by mid-afternoon, the show was in the early evening and we did the de-rig straight afterwards,” said tube UK Managing Director Melvyn Coote. “We do a lot of these events for Manchester City Council and time is always the biggest challenge.
“One of the huge advantages of the CL5 is that it is very straightforward to set up quickly. It is very easy to program, even for a really last-minute job. Whatever the timescale, we can arrive on site with a very highly prepared desk. That makes the work on site a lot less problematic.
“The whole event was broadcast live on the BBC News Channel, so we were transmitting to the world. We needed a lot of level from the microphones to cover 12,000 noisy football fans in an 80x60m area, maintaining the intelligibility so that it sounded great for both them and the broadcast microphones. The CL5 was a definite aid to that; it’s a really good-sounding desk.
“Another advantage is its ease of use. The Courteeners’ front of house engineer had never used one before, but he really enjoyed the experience. That’s what we’re finding with a lot of band engineers – those who would prefer to use something like a PM5D are happy to use the CL5 and they enjoy mixing on it.”
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