XL8 and XL4 on Oasis World Tour

The Oasis World Tour 2008/2009 is a working demonstration of why Midas digital and analogue consoles are the choice of leading sound engineers. On stage, creating state-of-the-art monitor mixes for the band, is a Midas XL8 Live Performance System in the hands of Nahuel Gutierrez. Meanwhile, front of house engineer Bruce Johnston has gone back to his favourite XL4 for this tour after several years of mixing the band on digital boards. Both are extremely happy with their individual choices, which suit their respective tasks and preferences.

The second leg of the band’s 14-month world tour got underway in Liverpool the day after new album Dig Out Your Soul hit the streets, and both engineers will be using their Midas desks of choice - supplied by Britannia Row for the European dates - throughout.

Twenty-seven year old Gutierrez has pretty much cut his teeth in the digital era, though this is his first time on an XL8, and his first time as Oasis’ main monitor engineer. “Now I can get the analogue sound on a digital desk,” he says. “I’ve been mixing for 10 years, with just the first three on analogue, and until now there hasn’t been a console that could deliver the real analogue sound, and more than that, the Midas sound!”

The XL8 is allowing Gutierrez to create more complex monitor mixes than he’s previously managed, storing his settings from each show and tweaking and perfecting them for the following one.

“It started quite simply, with 35 inputs, and around 20 mixes, and now I’ve gone up to 56 inputs with 38 mixes - for a six piece band!” he says. “For example: I do a mix of all the keyboards and bounce it down into two channels, so I’ve got control of all the keyboards with one fader and if anyone wants more keyboards it’s easy; however the keyboard player can have individual channels and the submix goes to everyone else apart from him.”

The band are on combinations of in-ear monitors and wedges with sidefills, so Gutierrez is taking advantage of the XL8’s flexibility, capacity and features to pull off some really intricate monitoring. Guitars take up a large proportion of inputs, as does Liam’s vocals which get split into three different channels for monitors, in ears and effects, the two latter mixes being gated using the onboard dynamics to cut out the stage noise. Gutierrez is also using the XL8’s onboard compressors. “Having four different choices of compressor again means this console is a step ahead, and you can switch between them live with the push of a button and really hear the difference, without having to repatch or load a plug-in.

“There was a lot of room for expansion and flexibility on the XL8, which has meant I can try out new ways of doing things,” he continues. “For me the POP (population) groups, which group the channels and bring them to you, are one of the best things. I’m also making good use of the Area B for songs which have cues; I have a bunch of channels I need to have handy all the time and access easily, and they’re always over there in Area B.”

Front of house engineer Johnston has worked with Oasis since 1997, starting off on an XL4 and working through various digital boards before returning to analogue for this tour. “Oasis are the perfect band for it; their last few records have been really dirty and fuzzy and compressed so I couldn’t justify going back out with a digital board,” he says. “I really wanted to hear what the XL4 would sound like going back to it, and I’ve found it’s 100% better, it’s like night and day. I felt digital was distracting me from mixing; I was so preoccupied with touching buttons and looking at screens that the sound became secondary.

“I always struggled with the drums on digital boards; I could never make them sound right. When I got back onto XL4 I pushed up the kick drum and there it was – that drum sound I’d been missing! My gut feeling is that the XL4 will be the Neve of the future.”

Photo Credits: ZioGiorgio.com

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