Midas XL8 Duo Premières in Autostadt Wolfsburg

Audiences as well as performers at the Movimentos festival in the Autostadt Wolfsburg (Volkswagen’s factory museum) can be assured that the sound system will match the excellence of the programme. This year, a new duo is making its German debut – a pair of Midas XL8 consoles that form a network sans pareil.

Photo Caption: one of the star guests at the Movimentos festival: John McLaughlin, the ‘grey’ eminence of jazz and fusion rock (Photo: C.DiSari-Cortez)

Although Movimentos is dedicated primarily to dance and the physical theatre, this year stars from the worlds of rock and pop also graced the KraftWerk auditorium of the Wolfsburg Autostadt, including the legendary Joe Cocker, multi-award-winning newcomers Sunrise Avenue, and the ‘grey’ eminence of jazz and fusion-rock, John McLaughlin and his 4th Dimension.

An audio system for countless applications

Autostadt technical director Christian Kiel and his team invested eight weeks preparing for the event. During this time the facility power plant was converted into the perfect events location, capable of accommodating as many as 1,000 guests at a time. Sound reinforcement is provided not just for the auditorium but for the entire building complex. 24 sends are controlled by the XL8 at front-of-house position, which also functions as a central control room for the alarm and announcement system, and as a router for all signals entering and leaving the location. A network makes it child’s-play to distribute audio signals to any part of the KraftWerk. “We remain in the digital domain the whole time and dispense all the way up to the amps with additional converters in the signal chain,” explains Technical Director Andreas Meier. “That is an unassailable advantage, particularly when considering the enormous variety of events taking place here in the course of the Movimentos festival.” Aside from the practical advantages offered by such a solution, the acoustic ones are obvious. “With this system, the problem of hiss is eliminated altogether,” says Meier.

Photo caption: “Unbelievably flexible routing and configuration options.” As ever, the Midas XL8 is inspiring enthusiasm.

Digital network between FOH, foldback and PA

Whilst the XL8 at the front-of-house position was used throughout the entire festival, the second XL8 at the monitor position was reserved exclusively for concerts. This XL8 is operated by Tobias Kiemann, an experienced FOH engineer well-versed in the finer points of the XL8. “Even though the requirements of the various performers and dance companies are often very particular and the production managers of the Autostadt very insistent upon the highest level of stability and reliability being maintained at all times, the XL8 front-of-house offers more than sufficient capacity to handle even the most unusual setups.” Nor did anyone throughout the entire festival exhibit the slightest trepidation at being confronted with a digital console: “to the contrary; in most cases the briefest of introductions was sufficient for the ice to be broken. In terms of sound quality, Midas is invariably synonymous with excellence, but with the XL8 you have, as a technician, the added advantages of unbelievably flexible routing and configuration options. Last but not least,” he added, “the XL8 really feels like a mixer – the faders have grip and the controls can be manipulated like those of a conventional desk.”

An unusual feature of the network solution involving the two digital consoles is the strict separation of the analogue and digital domains. Whilst the two desks form a peer-to-peer network, their analogue input sections (featuring three discrete preamps offering the characteristic Midas sound) remain independent.

“In the case of the classic application i.e. sound reinforcement for a concert, with separate FOH and monitor mixes, each position has its own independently controllable gain stage, and the subsequent routing of inputs (e.g. their assignment to mixer channels) is also handled independently,” says Kiemann. Already in its second year of operation, the redundant network structure of the XL8 has proved not only impervious to interference but also fail-safe.

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