I went to DM concert yesterday, the seats we got were directly above the stage. With my binoculars I could read their playlist that was taped to one of their mixing desks
It was an interesting night and I thought I would share my observations. The keyboard rig - there were 3 Virus TI's, a Moog Voyager XL, a Roland piano and..that was all as far as hardware synthesisers are concerned. The majority of keyboards on stage were Edirols PCR-800. This intrigued me a little so I paid attention to the sequences and signature sounds, as they were played during the concert. From what I could tell (looking through binoculars) most of those were triggered with midi controllers. Some sequences seemed to have been playback-ed, this is not a criticism, just an observation. Below me there was one of their huge midas mixing desks, another one was in the centre, in front of the stage. It was quite interesting to watch the sound/mixing crew at work. To them it must have been a normal office day, theyr seemed cool and professional at what they were doing.
At Music Radar I found an interview with the person in charge of the show. He explains in great detail how the concert is ran, it was quite eye opening to me. Some of the sequences are played through the Radar system - http://www.izcorp.com/products/radar/ which seems to be dedicated hardware for recording, playback software. Even more interesting to me is this: http://www.museresearch.com/products/ which is a dedicated hardware platform that runs plugins...some of them are familiar to me (GM imposcar for example). Also the drums, although played live, were channeled through effect plugins in order to obtain electronic drum sound, whenever necessary. Samplers were used to reproduce the classing analog synthesisers that DM still uses for studio recording, but which are considered unreliable for stage purposes.
All of this runs with a layer of backup equipment which makes sure that no single glitch is capable of ruining the show. Reading about all the (more or less familiar) software being used made me think that harwdare synthesisers truley are a dying breed and that a hobby musician has significant amount of firepower at his/her fingertips these days. Have a look at the whole interview at MusicRadar: http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/ ... ed-245774/
have a nice and relaxing Sunday
sewa
