The Stone Roses, Noel Gallagher and more play T in the Park with Midas

With a line-up featuring the likes of The Stone Roses, Noel Gallagher, Kasabian and Florence and the Machine, this year’s T in the Park saw a raft of Midas digital consoles dominate FOH on the Radio 1/NME Stage, while several headline acts brought along their own Midas desks.

Scottish rental company EFX Audio, headed up by engineer Steph Fleming, supplied two Midas XL8s and a PRO2C at FOH, one PRO6 and one PRO9 on monitors for the Radio 1/NME Stage.

Working alongside Steph on the Radio 1/NME Stage was Midas’ Jason Kelly, who explained: “I think pretty much every T in the Park headliner used Midas. Two Door Cinema Club brought their own Midas PRO2C, however almost all of the other acts, including David Guetta, Professor Green, and Swedish House Mafia, used the house Midas XL8s.”

On the main stage, a number of headline band engineers brought along their own Midas consoles, many of which were supplied by Britannia Row. These included: FOH engineer Robbie McGrath with The Stone Roses; FOH engineer Marc Carolan with Snow Patrol and Ian Laughton FOH for Florence & the Machine. “The console really suits Florence,” said Laughton, who is currently using a Midas PRO9. “Her show is very musical with lots of dynamics and the PRO9 enables me to make her sound exactly right. Features like the POP(ulation) Groups are so intuitive. Florence does a lot of running around the stage, alternating between singing and talking. With the PRO9 I can assign her vocal and immediate FX to the right hand side of the desk (Area B) and my assistant can pan her mic away from the PA and or take her FX off while I mix the band on the left hand side of the desk (Area A). It’s brilliant.”

Also touring with their own Midas PRO2C and PRO2 consoles are Noel Gallagher’s Flying Birds’ FOH and monitors engineers Antony King and Nahuel Gutierrez respectively. They adapted the original setup from their recent arena tour, which utilised XL8s, to fit the relatively small footprint of the PRO2C FOH and PRO2 on monitors for the festival season: “With a 26-piece choir from the Crouch End Festival Choir and Hertfordshire Choir, as well as a brass section, both XL8s were pretty full on the Arena Tour,” explained Gutierrez. “Out of 96 channels I was using 93, and out of 48 outputs I was using 47. For the summer festivals, where we are sometimes third on the bill, we transferred the show onto the PRO2C FOH and PRO2 on monitors. This meant we could roll up, do our set, pick up the PRO2C and PRO2 and go; fantastic!”

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