Note: I have been enlightened by finding and reading this!





Bold Moves From The Brotherhood

Rachel Esson reports from the Roundhouse on the Chemical Brothers’ mind-bending production design for their four-date album launch...

When school friends Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands began producing hip hop and dance music under the name The Dust Brothers in the early ’90s, performing with what long-term video director Adam Smith remembers as “two slide projectors, one 16mm projector and one Terra strobe”, they would never have conceived what their future stage shows might have involved.

Twenty years later, the globally renowned electronic dance duo, The Chemical Brothers, have just completed a four-date showcase of their seventh studio album Further at London’s Roundhouse, with a highly sophisticated multi-media production that was the result of huge investment, months of planning and state-of-the-art technology.
When I arrived at the venue ahead of their Saturday night show I was surprised to discover that they were going to make the bold move of playing their new album from start to finish; eight tracks never before heard by any of their fans. I was also surprised to see that the production team had managed to shoehorn a 72’ wide x 25’ high Barco MiTrix screen into the circular venue. It was a 3,000-capacity show, but the production was more akin to an arena set-up, requiring five trucks from Fly By Nite.

Although elements of the duo’s previous shows have been timecoded, this was the first time they had attempted to synchronise audio, lighting, video and lasers to MIDI timecode triggers, creating a fully integrated and highly immersive audiovisual experience for the audience.

I met production manager Mark Reuben backstage where he explained the idea behind the show: “The guys commissioned the album to be an audio-visual experience, so with it you get a DVD that has visuals relating to the songs, as well footage of how it was all produced. What you see up there is what the album is in terms of audio and visuals. It’s been a big risk for the band to get up there and play a new album from start to end, but they are very happy with the outcome.”

Reuben has worked as a monitor engineer on Placebo, Feeder and The Flaming Lips, but started in touring production in 2006 working with the likes of James Blunt. He was introduced to the tour by production designer Tom Lesh back in March, but prior to that had never actually seen a Chemical Brothers gig. “I had to go on YouTube to check them out but what you see on there is completely different to this, it’s incredible. This is without a shadow of a doubt the most groundbreaking production I’ve worked on,” he commented.

Backstage, the atmosphere amongst the crew was a mixture of excitement and nervous tension. All I spoke to were feeling the pressure of pulling off such a complex live show.

Although around half of the show was pre-programmed to MIDI timeline, the other half was completely live, with The Chemical Brothers mixing the show differently each night with a Mackie studio mixer and a stage-clogging number of effects — the engineers having to respond accordingly.

The Chemical Brothers put together a stellar team for the job which included their trusted video directors Adam Smith (of film production company Flat Nose George) and Marcus Lyall (of video content consultancy KPX), who were given free reign to create the corresponding videos for the eight tracks on the album, which is the first one they’ve produced that doesn’t have any lengthy vocal collaborations.

Smith explained: “We only had a few days of rehearsals at Elstree, but it was three and a half months worth of designing, preprogramming and making it work in synchronisation with the lighting.

“We knew what order the tracks were going to be in, so we were able to weave in a loose narrative, which is about a girl’s journey that takes on the psychedelic qualities of Alice in Wonderland. The idea was to take the audience on her trip.”

SUBMERGED
After a complicated shoot at Pinewood Studios in their underwater tank, which involved £30,000 worth of lighting equipment and a Phantom HD camera that shoots 1,000 frames a second, Lyall edited the clips using Final Cut Pro and After Effects. This was combined with old footage and re-formatted for wide screen.

The idea behind the screen was always to go as big as possible, but the challenge was to make sure it fitted into the circular venue in line with its weight loading capacity.

Said Tom Lesh: “The Chemical Brothers have very big production expectations. Our last show in September 2008 was a big show in Olympia so we had to come back in with something bigger and bolder.
“We talked about doing a 360° show, but I did a feasibility study and found out it was way too heavy to hang in here and there wasn’t enough screen in Europe to do what we wanted to do. When I was phoning supply companies they were all asking me, ‘What are you doing, the Olympics?’ I said, ‘No, the Roundhouse!’” So we back-pedalled a little bit at that point.”

The team also had to think about how the stage set would transfer to a festival environment, since after the Roundhouse shows the production was heading around Europe for eight festival shows, with a further two weeks in the U.S. They nailed it at design number four, which utilised a 72’ wide x 23’ high curved Barco MiTrix screen, consisting of 2,016 tiles, supplied by Creative Technologies under project manager Andy Reardon.

Reuben said Roundhouse head rigger Pete ‘The Greek’ Kalopsidiotis deserved a special mention: “Pete The Greek has done an absolutely fantastic job. Myself, Pete and Tom have been sending rigging drawings back and forth for the last two months.”

DEFINITION VS BRIGHTNESS
Following the Roundhouse shows, the MiTrix screen was to be swapped with a Spider F-30 display for the festival circuit, I asked why. Smith said it was “the pay off between definition versus brightness”.

Lyall added: “For the Roundhouse we wanted something that was as high res as possible. The problem with the Roundhouse is that people are only 10m away from the screen. If you’re 20m or 30m away from the screen, the difference between a 25mm and a 35mm pixel pitch isn’t that different, but if you’re 10m away the difference is quite a lot. We slightly preferred the Barco picture, but there’s not a lot in it.

“But time and cost was an issue when we came to looking at using the Barco screen on tour. The Spider is very easy to put up which is essential when you’ve only got a few hours load in.”

A layered design makes use of the semi-transparent qualities of the MiTrix panels, whereby the audience is introduced to different parts of the set in a climbing crescendo. The ambience of the venue when the doors opened was very much a club vibe, with a DJ set by James Holroyd and just 12 Martin MAC 2000 Spots pointing down on to the dancefloor from a circular truss above.

“I didn’t want people to see the stage at first,” said Lesh, of design company Lushlounge Design. “The first look is the star cloth fading in gently so you suddenly realise how big this thing is; quite a lot of it is psychological.”

BPM’s Duncan Holmes and Adam Murray supplied and rigged an eight-head CO2 cryo system, which suddenly blasted with white noise and vapor down onto the crowd before the video kicked in to the first song, ‘Snow’, with an abstract shot of a woman diving into a pool.
“In the fourth song we expand to the full screen and when the lights come through the LED wall synchronised with the movies on the screen you’re not quite sure where they are coming from,” said Lesh.

In the second song, a man made of dots appears on screen and when he waves his arms and legs around it looks as if he is turning off the lights that shine through and surround him.

LIGHTING IN LAYERS
An 80’ x 25’ LED colour-mixing starcloth provided by Universal Stars formed the back layer of the display. In front of that four evenly spaced, horizontal 40’ sections of 20.5” Supertruss formed a wall of Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes, and Martin MAC 301 LED Washes, which shone through the screen and interacted with the visuals.

Close to the screen layer, 16 PixelPar 90s were rigged at the top (all rigging via one tonne Lodestar motors).

A total of 40 PixelLine 1044s created bright vertical bars of light from either side of the stage on separate Supertrusses. Above the performace space were four 15’ fingers of the Supertruss in a fan shape, holding Coemar Infinity Wash XLs and more Martin Atomic 3000 Strobes, with five Coemar Infinity Washes for set lighting.

Finally, above the side trusses and on the six fingers were 12 i-Pix BB7 Washlights, which flashed into the audience during peak moments. All the lighting was supplied by Lesh’s preferred supplier, Neg Earth, because “they can do the job”. The look was finished off with two Le Maitre Stadium Hazers.

Lesh and laser & lighting programmer Matthew Button ran the lighting show off two grandMA consoles, with a third master desk as back-up, and three grandMA NSPs and an Ethernet switching unit. “I was a Hog man but I’ve been using grandMA since the last tour and after it finished I left wanting to learn a whole lot more so I taught myself and I’ve used it ever since,” said Lesh.

Button, who has worked for The Chemical Brothers for seven years, was also responsible for programming the timecode and MIDI triggers for the laser show, which also interacted with the video and lighting. “The major cue changes are done on timecode so some is triggered by MIDI and some is triggered by hand, depending on whether it’s something incidental or always used,” he explained.

The laser show comprised two of The Chemical Brothers’ own Arctos Arc 10 10W units, which were positioned either side of the stage on stands made by Bray Studios. Complementing them on the centre upstage truss was a Tarm 10W green laser supplied by London-based ER Productions, which pointed down at the performers. Commented Button: “ER Productions have the biggest supply of diode-based lasers in England. They are only three years old but are slowly becoming very very good.”

LOGICAL BRAINS
The visuals, lights and lasers, as well as some of the keyboards and equipment used on stage, are all MIDI enabled and are monitored by MIDI tech Matt Cox who sits at the brains of the show in front of laptops running Logic Studio and Ableton.

Explained Cox: “There are programmed MIDI parts on Logic that are routed out to the lighting side of things and also in Logic is a SMPTE time line, which constantly runs in the background and is used to trigger various video movies at certain points so they are replayed at the same point every night, like when the clown pops up to say ‘You are all my children now’.

“Tom looks after the mix using the old 32-channel, eight-buss Mackie studio desk on stage, which they don’t make any more. It essentially has 12 tracks of audio generated from my world in Logic Studio. Then there are another 10 tracks of samples that come from a computer running Ableton software; it’s the first time the band have used Ableton for playback. There are another 14 channels of keyboards; we ran out of channels and had to come into the desk on tape returns.”

Rowlands also uses an effects rack consisting of two Line 6 units, a Peavey analogue filter, a TC Electronics Fireworx and an Eventide effects unit, which are used for phase effects. These are all aligned to MIDI clock so that the delays and filter sweeps are kept in time to the music. “Tom arranges things as he goes,” said Cox. “It’s not witten in stone by any means, he starts with the faders down and builds it as he is feeling and hearing that night.”

In the meantime, Ed Simons triggers samples and plays with the various synth controls to do filter sweeps. A busy set consists mostly of old effects units and keyboards, including classics from Roland, Electron and Korg.

“With all the knobs and switches it’s a very hands on live performance, whereas with digital stuff everything is buried in different menus and it doesn’t lend itself to live improvisation as much. Older gear has more edge to it and has more character to it,” commented Cox. On stage equipment was looked after by backline tech Aaron Cripps.

OLD SKOOL ANALOGUE
Over at FOH, there was an analogue desk set up with some old-fashioned effects and compressors that meant sound engineer Shan Hira’s job was just as ‘live’ as The Chemical Brothers’ on stage.

Said Hira: “I always try and use a Midas XL4 analogue desk with The Chemical Brothers because everything up on that stage is old classic stuff and this is an old classic desk with a classic sound, I’ve also got a vintage set of outboard. With this kind of set you’ve got to be able to get your hands on things quickly, which is why I’ve got a set of outboard with so many knobs on! For me the job is about following Tom and Ed on their journey which is different every night, and showing off what they are doing on stage.”

Hira received 12 channels from The Chemical Brothers including eight sub groups which ran through four BSS 402 compressors. Compression for the main channels came via an XL42 and an Al Smart C2 compressor chained together.

“Effects wise, I’ve got a Roland SRE 555 Space Echo, an MXR delay system 2, a PCM60 with a PCM41 used together; the PCM 41 is inserted on the effects loop so that the PCM41 is just doing the pre-delay for the PCM60. I always take out the Spanner panning machine with me on Chems so I can pick stuff up really quickly and place it and move it round the room.

“I have also got an old BA40 Bel flanger in there and a more modern TC Reverb 6000 running three engines, which I’ve on the Chems for years.
“Additionally. I use a Fulltone tube tape echo. Tom Rowlands also has one which he brought in for me to use on these shows. I also have an AMS phaser and another phaser that Tom uses in his studio, a Mu-Tron Bi-Phase, I might have to buy one because I’m having a lot of fun with it.” Hira recorded the show each night on an HD-24 from the direct outs on the desk.

J-SERIES
Matt Vickers from sound supplier Skan was tasked with installing a d&b J-Series system at the Roundhouse on the direction of Hira, who has used Skan exclusively for many years.

“I like Skan, they pay attention to detail and they’re nice people to work with, nothing is too much trouble, they provide excellent support.” said Hira.

Reuben added that they had a “strong sound and lighting department” with support from Skan’s David McPhee, Ben Sliwinski and Matt Vickers, and Neg Earth’s crew chief Steve Kellaway, Dennis Gardener, Hayden Corps and Mark Cooper.

“I’ve worked with Skan since my first days with Feeder eight years ago and I’ve never used anybody else since then. I have a great relationship with Chris Fitch and the other guys at Skan and I think they’re without doubt the best PA company. It’s the first time I’ve worked with Neg Earth and I’ve had great results.”

Vickers reported that the installation was quite a challenge: “The Roundhouse is a difficult venue due to its structure, and the amount of coverage required. Production also wanted us to hang the PA as wide as possible so as to maximise the screen size for the best visual impact.”

Vickers opted for nine d&b J12 loudspeakers per side for the main hangs, eight d&b Q1s per side at the sides, and a centre hang of five d&b Q1s to overcome the loss of focus caused by the distance between the main hangs. The subs were split as four d&b J Subs per side with four spread out under the stage to smooth it out.

Amplification came from d&b D12s with built-in processing and ROPE control, all running digitally at 96kHz. An XTA 448 was used as an A/D converter to drive the system.

“Although it’s round with concrete flooring and iron pillars, the sound’s not as bad as this suggests!” said Hira. “It’s quite aggressive, it doesn’t hang around very long, but has lots of reflections. When the punters are in it’s fine.”

In monitor world, Ian Barton mixed on his desk of choice, the Midas H3000, because “its sonic qualities and ease of access to functions provide very accurate metering”.

The desk was running seven stereo feeds comprising two side fills made up of one d&b J Sub, three d&b Q1s and three d&b M2 wedges. There were also two L-Acoustics dV-Sub/Arcs rear fills, as well as two MTD-108 near fields, all supplied by Skan.

“Mixing the Chems is quite different to most bands due to me really trying to replicate the FOH mix and reach very high SPLs at centre stage, with the side, rear fills and nearfield 108s time aligned to the point where Tom stands, whilst keeping much lower levels stage left and right where Ed moves around,” said Barton.

EXCITEMENT
The duo rounded off a stunning show with a selection of their greatest hits, launching with ‘Hey Boy, Hey Girl’. The crowd became frenzied but their attention stayed on the visual show that towered overhead.
One person became so excited that they threw a drink on Hira’s XL4, stopping the sound momentarily. It was shortly recovered, but the following night a new desk arrived just moments before the doors opened... as if there wasn’t enough pressure.
TPi




http://www.tpimagazi...rotherhood.html

Just goes to show how "live" it really all is.

What an amazingly insightful article. Great find!

It's crazy to think the idea of an all encompassing 360 degree visual set up was being kicked around!

When it's all put together and you're enjoying the show, it's not hard to lose sight of all the meticulously worked magic going on behind the scenes.

Champiness, on 09 February 2011 - 09:17 PM, said:

Yes. For every "they don't really do anything onstage" naysayer, I'd like to print out this article and make them eat it.

wished they brought that Tarm 10W green laser for the whole 2010 tour. but Bring on that MiTrix screen to coachella... ill be less than 20m away!

whirlygirl, on 10 February 2011 - 06:47 AM, said:

my best friend could never believe they where actually doing anything live. he just was not used to electronic acts live performances but just to all those guitar bands.

having seen the brothers live, he has changed his mind

http://www.youtube.c...CWlgB8A#t=1m05s

inchemwetrust, on 10 February 2011 - 06:12 AM, said:

NEED !

Geeked out reading that. I would love to get into that field of lighting and visuals someday.

inchemwetrust, on 09 February 2011 - 09:12 PM, said:

This re-affirms on how much 'live' their sound is! Glad it's not 100 percent digital!

Didn't know Ableton was used for the samples. I always thought the samples were originally played from the Mackie desk originally! Am I right?

great article

and noticed the line "Hira recorded the show each night on an HD-24 from the direct outs on the desk."


hmmm

"We talked about doing a 360° show"

My dream nearly came true!

Now how can one possibly appreciate enough being so lucky to have experienced one of those Roundhouse shows. Even without being a tech geek that article is quite an overwhelming read. And what a pick for a first Chems' live gig to see... Unbelievable.

found some renders of the 360' roundhouse shows, shame it never happened as this could have been insane! also the stargate chandelier thing was a concept kicking around a few years ago

View on Vimeo.

View on Vimeo.

found some renders of the 360' roundhouse shows, shame it never happened as this could have been insane! also the stargate chandelier thing was a concept kicking around a few years ago

http://vimeo.com/5182185

http://vimeo.com/5182139

http://vimeo.com/5182113

http://vimeo.com/5182164

http://vimeo.com/5125080

Wow

this is amazing... their visuals and lightshow is anyway, but this is just massive. wow.

Ooh, and there's some HD footage of the Zenith Show!

Hoops (30 sec): http://vimeo.com/19793815

HBHG (30 sec): http://vimeo.com/19793815

Horse Power (full!): http://vimeo.com/20216102

F*ck me, that shit's unreal!!!

WOW!!

Perhaps one day this can be a reality. I'd like to hope so!

Thanks so much for posting these renders. How did you come across them?

They were planning the Stargate for that long? Nice!

Bouh, on 14 July 2010 - 4:16 PM, said:

MadPooter, on 15 July 2010 - 01:30 AM, said:

Bouh, on 16 July 2010 - 6:08 PM, said:

Anyway those videos of "le zenith" are awesome. What is next ?!!!

whirlygirl, on 18 June 2011 - 11:59 AM, said:

F*ck me, that shit's unreal x 5!

Just think, if we witness this on the next tour, how on earth would they even top that setup!


From my previous post:

The Chemical Brothers put together a stellar team for the job which included their trusted video directors Adam Smith (of film production company Flat Nose George) and Marcus Lyall (of video content consultancy KPX), who were given free reign to create the corresponding videos for the eight tracks on the album, which is the first one they’ve produced that doesn’t have any lengthy vocal collaborations.

Make this happen Marcus! I love those ceiling effects! They go much better with the Stargate!