Running in conjunction with (and adjacent to) the ETS-LDI trade show for the second time this year, ET Live is an outdoor event where audio manufacturers can demonstrate their concert sound systems with full staging and production facilities.
This forward-thinking idea allows prospective purchasers of equipment throughout the live music audio signal chain, to hear how they sound in the environment where they will be used, without the "false" sound that is an inevitable side effects of demonstration rooms.
Taking place in Orlando, FL November 11-13, the 2005 ET Live demonstrations featured a wide range of manufacturers products that used CD playback tracks and live performances to put them through their paces.
DiGiCo mixing consoles were well represented, with a pair of DiGiCo D1 Live consoles at the core of Meyer Sound’s demonstration of its MICA compact line array system, with FOH engineer Buford Jones manning one console for the main mix and Matt Salerno doing the monitor mix on the other.
Each live demonstration was recorded onto a MADI hard disk system, allowing an impressive 128 tracks recorded at any one time, a facility that has been available for DiGiCo’s products for over three years and has been used extensively on U2 and Beck’s recent tours as well as with Pink Floyd, Annie Lennox, Paul McCartney and Madonna during rehearsals for the Live 8 Hyde Park concert.
"ET Live is a great opportunity for us to be able to demonstrate our consoles in a live setting,” says DiGiCo's David Webster. “Because of the way the demonstrations are set up, it gives people the chance to listen to a variety of both loudspeaker systems and consoles and be able to compare like for like. The D1 Live really comes into its own in situations like this and we had a lot of very favorable remarks."
