Canadian jazz vibraphone virtuoso Peter Appleyard marked his recent 85th birthday with a concert in his 1895 Nassagaweya barn in Rockwood, Ontario, which was also recorded for later release.
The lineup for the Jazz in the Barn event included pianist Joe Sealy, trumpeter Guido Basso, bassist Dave Young, drummer Terry Clarke, and saxophonist Jane Bunnett – all recipients of the Order of Canada. Michael Nunan served as chief engineer for the concert, with the support of Anthony Montano as producer and Lawo North America Engineering Manager Doug Smith.
‘Given the intimate acoustic nature of the performance and the relatively small size of the venue, the PA system was used quite sparingly,’ Nunan says. ‘Aside from vocals, only small amounts of the solo wind and brass instruments [sax, flute, trumpet, flugelhorn and vibes] were needed. This also meant that the sound reinforcement system was not a huge factor in terms of overly exciting the room.
‘As a result, the recording was able to authentically capture the wonderful ambiance of the space – all of which was recorded using a combination of a Lawo mc²56 MkII mixing desk, Avid Pro Tools and Magix Sequoia recording systems. In addition to the live and record mixes, we also used the mc²56 MkII to drive a single loudspeaker to provide the pianist and vocalist with a monitor mix of the wind, brass, and bass signals.’
The mc²56 MkII console used for the event was configured with 32 faders, including 16 main faders and 16 centre section faders plus DSP, and was used for mixing both FOH and the recording.
‘We had a total of 32 inputs at the board,’ Nunan says. ‘This included 22 digital microphone inputs, eight analogue microphone inputs, and two line inputs. The extraordinary flexibility of the console, combined with the connectivity provided by the Lawo core and the Dallis interface frame made this project a pleasure to mix. A large number of AES inputs from the stage is fairly unusual, and this is something that competing systems don’t always handle all that well. Combine this console’s versatility with being able to easily connect to two different multitrack systems via Madi, and we had a tremendously powerful system at our disposal.
‘We were able to configure the mixer to behave like a traditional in-line console, so that, between rehearsal and the show, we could simply re-map all of the console inputs to originate from the multitrack rather than from the stage inputs. By working in this manner, we were able to refine our FOH mix as well as the live desk mix that we would be generating during the show.
‘Lawo’s Dallis mic inputs were a fantastic complement to the studio-grade microphones we used, and they matched exceedingly well with the digital microphones that formed the backbone,’ Nunan adds. ‘The prospect of doing a live recording – and desk mix – along with providing the FOH mix and monitoring support from a single console would have been a really daunting task if not for the extraordinary capabilities of Lawo’s console.
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