witzendoz
Senior Member
Last week I had the pleasure of working with the Gyuto Monks, my wife organized the tour to Fremantle where they spent 2 weeks in the town hall creating a sand mandala, holding meditation sessions, public talks and childrens fun workshops. The big event for me was the concert night Harmonic Chanting "Sounds of selfnlesness" with a sold out audiance of 460. The Gyuto Monks are world renowened and have even had a Grammy Nomination.
I did the sound on the night and dug out my old studio console, a Tascam M2524, for front of house duties. I keep the M2524 around for the ocasional live tracking duties and it always does a good job. The PA was not over big, I ran a small EV sub each side plus a 15" and horn box each side, I used a Crown XLS2000 to run FOH and this had plenty of headroom (this was not a rock gig). There was no foldback required as the monks don't need it. There are 6 monks on stage so I used 6 condensors, 3 Sennheiser ME80's and 3 ME40's (I would have liked 6 ME80's but I only have 3). The ME80's are great in these situations as the mics have to be low profile out of sight lines and the pattern of the ME80 has great side rejection with a long pattern. The ME40's did a good job too.
I was concerned about feedback, the hall is very live, and we only had a 1/2hr window for sound check due to having to rejig the stage from the afternoon events. I did set up the Pa the night before, very late as I had to wait for all the events that night to finish first, and line checked all the mics and set up the eq, so I was ready to go. I also had to focus the lighting 15 mins before the doors opened, I need 3 of me.
The night went without any problems, I had heard the monks many times and know what to expect (most sound guys that get them don't know), they sing fairly loud so there is plenty of mic gain, feedback was never a problem and I only had to fine tune the system EQ a little when the room filled up. We also had an introduction by Richard Walley with a welcome t country ceremony, this was also fantastic with a traditional Aboriginal song and didgeridoo playing (SM58 Voc and SM58 didgeridoo). Richard is very talented and apart from traditional music he has albums of dance music with didgeridoo.
The whole night was recorded to my laptop so there could be a release of this in some form at a later date. Here is a link of a video taken on an I phone of the concert, the sound on the phone is not that good but just to give an idea of what it was like.
Cheers
Alan
I did the sound on the night and dug out my old studio console, a Tascam M2524, for front of house duties. I keep the M2524 around for the ocasional live tracking duties and it always does a good job. The PA was not over big, I ran a small EV sub each side plus a 15" and horn box each side, I used a Crown XLS2000 to run FOH and this had plenty of headroom (this was not a rock gig). There was no foldback required as the monks don't need it. There are 6 monks on stage so I used 6 condensors, 3 Sennheiser ME80's and 3 ME40's (I would have liked 6 ME80's but I only have 3). The ME80's are great in these situations as the mics have to be low profile out of sight lines and the pattern of the ME80 has great side rejection with a long pattern. The ME40's did a good job too.
I was concerned about feedback, the hall is very live, and we only had a 1/2hr window for sound check due to having to rejig the stage from the afternoon events. I did set up the Pa the night before, very late as I had to wait for all the events that night to finish first, and line checked all the mics and set up the eq, so I was ready to go. I also had to focus the lighting 15 mins before the doors opened, I need 3 of me.
The night went without any problems, I had heard the monks many times and know what to expect (most sound guys that get them don't know), they sing fairly loud so there is plenty of mic gain, feedback was never a problem and I only had to fine tune the system EQ a little when the room filled up. We also had an introduction by Richard Walley with a welcome t country ceremony, this was also fantastic with a traditional Aboriginal song and didgeridoo playing (SM58 Voc and SM58 didgeridoo). Richard is very talented and apart from traditional music he has albums of dance music with didgeridoo.
The whole night was recorded to my laptop so there could be a release of this in some form at a later date. Here is a link of a video taken on an I phone of the concert, the sound on the phone is not that good but just to give an idea of what it was like.
Cheers
Alan
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