Avid VENUE | S6L Delivers Show-stopping Performances for the Biggest World Tours
Top live sound engineers adopt award-wining live sound system to optimize usability, quality and efficiency
Avid recently announced that its flagship live sound system, Avid VENUE™ | S6L, has been adopted by some of the most respected live sound engineers to take on the world’s most demanding tours. Powered by the MediaCentral® Platform, the industry’s most open, tightly integrated and efficient platform designed for media, Avid VENUE | S6L enables engineers like Jim Warren and Mike Prowda (Radiohead), Paul “Pab” Boothroyd (Paul McCartney), and Greg Nelson (Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog) to achieve better sounding mixes for their artists with greater speed and efficiency.
Gerard Albo, front-of-house engineer whose experience includes artists like Amy Winehouse, Patti Smith, and Tom Jones, adopted Avid VENUE | S6L for a-ha’s world tour. “The S6L is so powerful, yet so simple to use,” he said. “The transition from Profile was simple, and at rehearsals, I felt confident to take it out on the road after just a few hours. The touchscreen workflow is much faster and the sound of the preamps is first class, as are the onboard EQ and dynamics. Overall, it’s a delight to mix on.”
Robert Nevalainen, founder of Gearforce Pro Audio Equipment Rentals, has been working as monitor engineer on tour with Canadian recording artist Bryan Adams. “I’m able to take care of small details at a very high resolution, and I’ve never heard my inputs sound so true – big, accurate, and musical,” he said. “Every night at some point during the show, I have an ‘I love this console!’ moment.”
Front-of-house engineer Charles ‘Chicky’ Reeves has used VENUE consoles for many years touring with music icons like Prince, Grace Jones and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. “It only took me about half a rehearsal to feel natural on the S6L,” he said. “What struck me most about the new desk is the sound. For the first time with a digital system, I felt like I didn’t have to fight the console—this one was actually my champion.”
Other industry leading engineers that have adopted Avid VENUE | S6L to mix the world’s biggest tours include: Greg Price and Myles Hale (Black Sabbath), Jason Decter (blink-182), Brad Madix, (Linkin Park), Paddi Krause (In Flames), Chris Madden (Anastacia), Robb Allan (Massive Attack), Fern Alvarez, Jr. and Steve McCale (Elvis Costello), Caram Costanzo (Guns N’ Roses), Snake Newton and Charlie “Chopper” Bradley (Duran Duran), Sean “Sully” Sullivan (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Josh Osmond (The Lumineers), Keith “Meaux” Windhorst (Journey), Jody Perpick (Bryan Adams), Harley Zinker (Young the Giant), Aaron Glas (Fitz & the Tantrums), Grace Royse (Sublime with Rome), and Stefan Holtz (Die Toten Hosen, Marius Müller-Westernhagen).
“With the industry’s most powerful processing engine and unparalleled live recording capabilities, Avid VENUE | S6L has proven to be the choice of leading live sound professionals,” said Tom Cordiner, Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Avid. “With Avid VENUE | S6L, we’re giving our preeminent customer and user community the powerful tools and all-inclusive solutions they need to take on the most demanding tours around the world.”
Avid VENUE | S6L is a fully modular, flexible live sound mixing system that delivers best-in-class functionality for a range of live sound mixing applications, including front-of-house, monitor, broadcast, theater, and more. Offering unprecedented processing capabilities—with over 300 processing channels—S6L delivers unrelenting performance and reliability through its advanced engine design, backed up by modern touchscreen workflows and the scalability to easily handle large, complex tours and events. Like all Avid VENUE systems, S6L provides seamless Pro Tools® integration and on-board industry-standard plug-ins, with higher track counts and more processing power than ever before. With a comprehensive array of network and I/O offerings, users can easily configure the system to meet the demands of any type of show.