MANCHESTER, UK — The Stone Roses performed a series of concerts for some 225,000 fans at Heaton Park here recently. FOH engineer Robbie McGrath mixed the shows using a Midas PRO6 digital console.
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Anti-authoritarian, painfully honest and over flowing with integrity, The Stone Roses sound has always promised something way beyond the banality of day-to-day routine — and this gig marked the band’s first for 16 years.
In control Front of House is long-time Midas user Robbie McGrath, whose sound engineering credentials include some of rock music’s finest acts including The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Kasabian. McGrath praised the Midas PRO6 for its wealth of musical ability.
“The head amps are incredible, I can set up the PRO6 the same way as I would a great analogue console such as the Midas XL4. On top of this you have a very smooth digital trim, which is fab. The EQ is exceptionally musical — it really retains that much-loved Midas sound and the on board compressors are amazing.”
McGrath uses the Midas PRO6 to great effect to deliver everything from the moving candor of ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ to the raw Zeppelin like rock of ‘Fools Gold’ while holding onto an intimacy that had the audience hanging on every word and singing along like an unruly choir.
“The Stone Roses’ are incredibly talented,” says McGrath. “Because it’s drums, bass, guitar and vocals, with no trimmings whatsoever, I need a desk that will concentrate on the quality of the raw music, at the end of the day that’s what this band are all about.”
And, with the generation-defining Stone Roses’ return having been anticipated with almost religious fervor, there was a lot riding on McGrath and his PRO6. “Energy is everything, and that’s what this desk has in abundance,” he says. “Compressors are hugely important to me – if you use compressors correctly you can get a mix at 101db to sound like you’re kicking 110, or, if you’re into audio terrorism, 110 that sounds like 115!”
Midas Brand Development Manager Richard Ferriday comments “That’s high praise indeed for our compressor plug-ins, coming from someone with Robbies’ wealth of experience. The good news for us mere mortals, is that the same MIDAS compressor plug-ins are included on the PRO2 and the new PRO1 consoles”.
