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Longtime FOH engineer Greg Nelson raves about sound quality, reliability, and ease-of-use
Pearl Jam, one of the founding bands of the grunge rock movement (and most successful), is the latest band to convert to Digidesign's VENUE live sound environment. The band has had a busy year, commencing with the release of their eighth studio album, Pearl Jam, in May with the single "World Wide Suicide" topping the Billboard Modern Rock chart and reaching #2 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Chart. The band was also recently nominated for an American Music Award ("Favorite Artist") and an MTV "Good Woodie" award, which recognizes artists for their social impact. Currently Pearl Jam is on a worldwide tour, playing large festivals (including the iconic Leeds and Reading Festivals in the UK) and dates throughout South America, Mexico, Canada, the U.S., Europe, and Australia through December 2006.
Longtime FOH (front of house) engineer Greg Nelson was excited to work with Rat Sound Systems—sound providers who supply audio systems for many tours in the U.S., Canada, and Europe—to integrate VENUE into the Pearl Jam tour after seeing the system in action with U2 and Tom Petty. Once he got his hands on his very own VENUE system, he found its sound quality, ease-of-use, plug-ins, and reliability to be its salient features.
" I decided on the VENUE after Dave Skaff, VENUE's live sound product specialist and longtime monitor engineer, showed me how he was using it on U2," says Nelson. "I really got excited after we did some dates with Tom Petty and Robert Scovill [longtime FOH engineer and Digidesign's live sound market manager] let me play around with his [D-Show] console and [its] wide array of processing. It was so simple to learn and very easy to use—I had 90 percent of the console figured out after about 20 minutes during a run-through one day. I played with it for about half a day, then did a show."
Nelson was immediately struck with the system's exceptional sound quality. "VENUE has made a noticeable difference in my mix," he affirms. "It gives you so many tools and is so responsive and transparent that it would be hard to go back to any other console at this point."
The VENUE system's reliability was critical in the face of Pearl Jam's rigorous touring schedule. During one particular stretch of outdoor shows, the heat was intense, yet VENUE remained cool, proving its dependability. "The first shows I did with VENUE were at the Gorge in Washington," recalls Nelson. "It was 110 degrees the first day and 116 degrees the second, and the board performed fine. It didn't even get hot! It has traveled to Europe and braved the roads of the old Eastern bloc [and] had no problems."
For more information about Pearl Jam and tour dates, visit www.pearljam.com.
About VENUE
Digidesign's VENUE live sound environment is revolutionizing the art and profession of live sound mixing with studio-quality sound, TDM plug-in effects processing, and direct connectivity to industry-standard Pro Tools® recording and playback systems. For more information, visit www.digidesign.com
