The New Jersey/California-based Music Mix Mobile (M3) remote facilities company put Waves’ MultiRack SoundGrid plug-ins and a Lawo mixing console at the 2016 Grammy Awards when they were aired live from the Los Angeles’ Staples Center on the CBS Television Network in all four US time zones for the first time.

M3 co-founder and Engineer-in-Charge Joel Singer notes that M3 recently upgraded the M3 set-up to a Lawo mc²56 console with a Waves Extreme Server connected to it, along with a DiGiGrid MGO to allow Madi inserts across the entire system.

‘We’re able to control everything through the Lawo integration with the Waves set-up,’ he confirms, ‘making it a much, much more speedy process – crucial in getting all of these different setups done with all the different artists using the Waves plug-ins on certain insert channels.

‘The first benefit of using the MultiRack plug-in host with the Lawo is that you have the Waves plug-ins that everyone is used to. Our engineers are accustomed to the plug-ins that they used to use in the Avid Venue, so they are go-to plugs. Whether it’s the CLA-76 Compressor/Limiter, Renaissance Vox, Renaissance Compressor, H- Reverb, IR1 Convolution Reverb or H-Delay, our engineers are at home with them and they’re used to the controls.

Being able to run them directly on the console is an added benefit because now the workflow just goes so much faster. You just hit the plug-in page on the Lawo, and up comes MultiRack, so you can just quickly scroll to get down to the plug-in you want, open it, set it, and hit update on the Lawo, which then updates the snapshot in MultiRack – and now you have a unified, fully integrated system. We’re able to use either the touchscreen to control parameters on the Waves plugs, or we can go the conventional way and mouse over to it and do it the way we used to – whatever co-music mixers Eric Shilling and John Harris are comfortable with, as they used to just use the trackball to grab something and manipulate it. They’re really happy doing it that way, and that’s kind of where it’s at. So it’s all working great and it’s very comfortable for both of them.’

On using Waves plug-ins, he says: ‘One of the most important plug-ins is the H-Reverb Hybrid Reverb. We’re using it in a mono/in surround/out configuration, 5.0 out configuration. That way we’re able to create a space for vocals and instruments: the Staples Center sounds great, but it’s not the type of ambiance you would want on a vocal or on certain instruments. We are using two instances of those, to be able to create different types of 5.0 reverb returns, which fills out the entire surround infrastructure. We also use, again, the Waves CLA-76 Renaissance Compressor and Renaissance DeEsser on all the vocals, to be able to level them and keep it where the engineer and artist are happy with it. Some Waves plug-ins help add character, while some are true problem solvers that help us keep levelling exactly where it should be. They all come in extremely handy throughout the course of the event.’