The Roland M-5000 Digital Mixing Console, hired by Silence!, was mixing FOH on the 23 date Autour de la Guitare.
Lead by world renowned French guitarist JF Lalanne, the Autour de la Guitare also included Robben Ford, Larry Carlton, Christopher Cross, Johnny Clegg, Ron Thal, John Jorgenson, Axel Bauer, Paul Personne, Dan Ar Braz, Michael Jones, JM Ecay and Nono Krief.
FOH Engineer, Manu Guiot, Designer of the Notre Dame de Paris musical, was at the helm of the M-5000 for the tour. Commenting on the M-5000, Guiot explained: “It was the first time that I had seen or used the Roland M-5000 and my initial impression was good and that in comparison to other consoles at this end of the market that I had used before it was right up there.
“The console includes some really good features and after messing around with it I found that I really liked it. The M-5000 had a good sound and was easy to use.”
The M-5000 mixed down 64 channels delivered from the I/O boxes on the stage using two stereo outputs and one mono output to connect. Inputs on stage were provided by the Roland S-4000S-3208 Digital Snake (32×8 Modular Stage Unit) and connected via Cat5e cable at 96kHz using REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication).
The M-5000 had two REAC ports, which allowed extra I/O boxes to be added. On the Autour de la Guitare tour a third port, designed for recording, was used to connect to the Roland R-1000 stand-alone recorder.
Working alongside Silence! on the tour preparation, Thomas Delory from Roland Central Europe commented: “Both the FOH and System Engineers were highly satisfied, confident and proud to work with the new M-5000. In fact, Silence! have already decided to specify the M-5000 for a second classical live show Fauteuil d’Orchestre and for possible television production work in the future.”