OT: funny incident at nine inch nails concert

dave999z · Post by **dave999z** » Sat May 07, 2005 6:42 am

I saw nine inch nails in Chicago tonight, and when they started the set, the protools VENUE system totally screwed up and all you could hear were Trent Reznor's vocals. It took them 20 minutes (of dead time with the house lights on) to sort it out, the sound guys were getting heckled, then they finally restarted the show.

Maybe they should try LIVE.

adhmzaiusz · Post by **adhmzaiusz** » Sat May 07, 2005 12:09 pm

wtf

does that mean that they were pulling a kareoke act or possibly even a prerecorded lipsync?????

adhmzaiusz · Post by **adhmzaiusz** » Sat May 07, 2005 12:12 pm

oh you said venue system

why tf would a venue be running a protools system i thought it was just standard mixing board and stuff?

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Sat May 07, 2005 12:58 pm

you can run plugins on pro tools gear so you don't have to cart as much heavy expensive stuff around. probably a financial decision.

forge · Post by **forge** » Sat May 07, 2005 12:59 pm

sweetjesus wrote:you can run plugins on pro tools gear so you don't have to cart as much heavy expensive stuff around. probably a financial decision.

DUUUUUDE! you can run plug-ins in Live!

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Sat May 07, 2005 1:05 pm

forge wrote:
sweetjesus wrote:you can run plugins on pro tools gear so you don't have to cart as much heavy expensive stuff around. probably a financial decision.

DUUUUUDE! you can run plug-ins in Live!

Shit! I've been rewiring Live to Pro Tools and running the output of pro tools into plogue bidule and then running fruity loops as a vsti in plogue and feeding that back into Live using Virtual Patch Cables and then recording the output in my ipod.

WTF?

Actually yes you can run plugins in Live but they would most likely be using a high end TDM with DSP chips that place no strain on the cpu and less chance of crashing when you run 30 channels of stuff.

dirtystudios · Post by **dirtystudios** » Sat May 07, 2005 4:30 pm

My old engineering professor once walked into one of the control rooms at Larabee just in time to see good old Trent drop trou and light a fart.

k

computo · Post by **computo** » Sat May 07, 2005 4:34 pm

uh, maybe the Venue had Protools, because they record shows?!?

boomklik · Post by **boomklik** » Sat May 07, 2005 4:54 pm

Hm...some of you dont seem to understand that pro tools is the standard
is most every facet of the audio industry...and their 'live sound' equipement
which is called "venue" was released quite recently.

http://www.digidesign.com/news/details. ... ry_id=1998

LOFA · Post by **LOFA** » Sat May 07, 2005 5:20 pm

I would really like to know how easy it would be to replace that whole set up with stack of G5s or macmini's, a nice mackie controller (or two) and Logic (probably 6. something, since 7 is utterly buggy still!). I bet you could get something drastically more powerful for all of the money they want for this.

It would be an interesting project, but it is still somewhat out of my league, as I have no experience with protools at all, and am physically sickened whenever I hear their name (because of some of their business practices, and blows to longstanding customers.) Of course, there will be day when I will work for money, in a someone elses studio and I am sure I will have a blast playing with their money!

If anyone has the background and can be bothered to toss out a quick diagram or cartoon, I would love to see it... I bet it would be no-brainer some of us , and I am very interested!

Thanks!

dave999z · Post by **dave999z** » Sat May 07, 2005 6:03 pm

Yeah, sorry for the lack of explanation... ProTools "Venue" is the name of the hardware/software package for live use that Digidesign released last year with some broohaha (don't ask me how it differs from a typical ProTools HD system, I have no idea). So basically, instead of hauling tons of random outboard processors around, you haul tons of Digidesign outboard processors around.

Obviously I don't really know what the technical problem they had was, but since it seemed the mix was screwed up, and they were mixing with Venue, I think that was the culprit.

Oh and sure plenty of tracks at a nine inch nails show are pre-recorded and the band plays along various bits and pieces. That's not shocking. If you like them, you like that, because that's what they're all about. The band members never fake playing a part or anything, but there is definitely a lot of sound you hear that no one on stage is creating at a given moment. I wouldn't call it karaoke... he did write the music after all, they are playing five instruments at any one time, and it doesn't suck.

Dave

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Sat May 07, 2005 6:58 pm

I saw Garbage two weeks ago, and they were using a Venue board too. Looked impressive, sounded great, no issues.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Sat May 07, 2005 7:32 pm

weird, I only thought they used PT Venue for their monitoring. That system looks shit hot. Now, if they'd make a portable live-mixer that would fit in a suitcase type of rack... that.. didn't cost a million... and uhm. Oh wait. It's digidesign..

dave999z · Post by **dave999z** » Sat May 07, 2005 7:39 pm

Machinate wrote:Now, if they'd make a portable live-mixer that would fit in a suitcase type of rack... that.. didn't cost a million... and uhm. Oh wait. It's digidesign..

Exatcly.

I'm pretty sure they were running it to control their main sound, not just monitors. Altough during the fuckup it seemed the band didn't know what was going on, so maybe their monitors were ok? (But Trent Reznor's monitor was an in-ear thingy.) Whatever. The sound guys were shaking their heads at the PCs that looked connected to the console with the "VENUE" logo on it.

It's not that big a deal, anything can choke. Live certainly has on me a number of times. Just nice when it happens to digidesign.

Once they got up and running, the sound was pretty good, but I think it pales compared to the sound system they took out on their last tour (maybe they'll bust that shit out later this year when they tour arenas again... this was a pretty small place).

allert · Post by **allert** » Sun May 08, 2005 12:38 am

The Digidesign "venue" system is by no means a standard in the live audio world.
Seeing as they try to be one of the players in this field I would have expected them to build in a little more redundancy.
For instance:

You can crash the DigiCo D1 or D5 (http://www.digiconsoles.com/) totally but the audio will keep running.

This desk and the Yamaha digital desks (PM1D, PM5D, DM2000) are far more common in the live audio world, built by manufacturers with experience in the field. And, for now, with a better track record as far as I know.

BTW: lots of band technical riders still say: "NO DIGITAL DESKS AT ALL"

Big, heavy Midas desks with lotsa outboard are still the thing for most engineers, including me.

The DigiCo desk is a step in the right direction and I will definitely use it with pleasure when I come across one but if I could spec a tour and the budget was right, I'd still spec a Midas XL or Heritage series. I might start using the R66 reverb and a nice delay plugin running in Live (hey! On topic !) and other time based effects on my powerbook. Dynamics & EQ ? Analog for now...

Cheers,
Allert