US live sound and production consultancy Michael Gaster & Associates offers everything from design and build to front-of-house mixing and other support services. In particular, Gaster specialises in live sound for orchestras and large ensembles with high channel counts. ‘I’ve done touring with rock bands and all sorts of gigs like that,’ he explains. ‘But as early as the mid-90s, I was finding success mixing large orchestral events.’
Gaster and his firm now work with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, Savannah Philharmonic Chorus & Orchestra and the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra among other such clients. For a recent performance with the Savannah Philharmonic, Gaster used Roland’s M-5000 Ohrca Live Mixing Console for a high-stakes public outdoor event – Picnic in the Park. In spite of the lack of a soundcheck, the M-5000 delivered and he has been raving about the console since. He is now counting on its use on events in the future – both in the worlds of orchestral music and with mainstream pop and rock acts.
‘I literally had the M-5000 for one day [before the event],’ Gaster says. ‘Because the show was outdoors, we had to deal with weather, which in this case involved a hurricane! We cancelled the rehearsal and sound check, but the show proceeded as planned. I went in to a show where I was using 71 channels (59 in-orchestra mics) with no sound check, and to an audience of 10,000 or more. Right out of the gate, we had an excellent mix. The customization of the M-5000’s control surface – with the very clear menus, ease of patching, routing, moving and labelling – made what would normally be considered a disastrous scenario one of my biggest success stories in mixing sound.’
Gaster’s M-5000 system included two S-2416 digital snake stage units, each with an S-1608 digital snake cascaded into the S-2416. This system provided a total of 96 XLR inputs and 64 XLR outputs.
‘Probably the coolest thing that I like about this board is the total openness of the console. In the digital mixer world the biggest thing is not just feature sets, but the accessibility of the feature sets. The cool thing with the M-5000 is everything’s as accessible as you make it, and that’s why I was comfortable going into such a blind situation and was able to get great results. Most people would not necessarily go into any show, whether it’s rock or jazz or symphonic, without a sound check, especially with a new console and that high of a channel count. But I felt fairly confident that the time I spent with the board was used to get it set up in a way where I can move around freely and quickly while having what I needed at my fingertips. And then the sound quality and onboard effects – it was impeccable.’
Gaster has big plans for the M-5000, including a large multi-act rock festival: ‘I’ve got an arts festival coming up that will have everything from rock to folk music and more, and this console is perfect for these types of situations,’ he says. ‘You are able to create a console layout, condense things down and open them up within the user layers, and even get back to the basics. It’s ideal for this application, where your layouts from one act to another can vary widely. Pure and simple, this console is a game-changer.’
