BRITANNIA ROW PRODUCTIONS NEWS

In February we were with Young Voices, Mumford & Sons in the USA, we were at the Brit Awards, in Dubai and Madrid with Jamiroquai, prepping equipment for Nick Mason and with P!nk in the USA for tour rehearsals ahead of her first show in Fort Lauderdale on 1st March, at Festival Hall with Hanson , with Steely Dan in the UK and Maggie Rogers in the UK and at London Fashion Week with shows including JW Anderson and Victoria Beckham.

We were at the 2019 TPi Awards  held at The Battersea Evolution, Battersea Park, on Monday 25th February. 

Chris Kansy, Roger Waters’ Production Manager, and Jon Lemon, Roger’s FOH engineer were among our guests at the Britannia Row tables this year so we were delighted when the Roger Waters ‘US + Them’ tour picked up the TPi Award for Favourite Production.

 
Chris Kansy (L) with the award, Jon Lemon (R)

Also this month we experienced another great Live Sound Advanced evening session. The well attended session was run by DPA's UK distributor, Sound Network, who demonstrated DPA microphone solutions for drums using a live drummer and demonstrating the use of different microphones in different positions and in different combinations through live multi track recording playback.

Les Mommson of Sound Network presented the session and went through microphone theory and basic principles. using videos and slides and then on to talk through the DPA manufacturing process and how the microphone goes through specific treatments and tests before the final product is achieved.Les gave us the chance to take a close look at various microphones' components.

A drum kit and live drummer were in place for a practical demonstration of how to mic up a drum kit .

A thoroughly fascinating and informative day!



Our thanks and appreciation to Les Mommsen and drummer John Scott for a very well presented/informative and interesting day.

In February we also hosted a joint venture with Yamaha Commercial Audio - the PM Series Experience Day.

It took place in one of London’s iconic music venues - the Roundhouse, the event gave Audio Professionals and aspiring Sound Engineers a chance to get a detailed overview of the Rivage PM7 and PM10 mixing systems as well as an opportunity for plenty of hands-on testing and listening in a great, real world environment.

Tom Rundle - Yamaha Product Specialist was on hand to present the product and answer questions and share his experience throughout the event. A big thank you to Tom.

JANUARY NEWS

In January we were touring in Australia with Florence and The Machine, Phil Collins and Mumford and Sons. Closer to home we had Young Voices UK shows and Cirque du Soleil (Totem) at the Royal Albert Hall. Ben Howard shows in Brixton, Birmingham, Paris & Dublin. A corporate show at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, Roundhouse in the Round gigs, Laura Holmes fashion shows - Kiko & Eye Loewe Nature
We have been in rehearsals with Dido and with Pink ready for shows in Feb, out in the U.S with the Foo Fighters and out on shows with Two Door Cinema Club and Noel Gallagher.

We were also actively busy improving facilities on site at Twickenham for our training endeavours. Steel got tipped in the car park on Monday 29th January and by Tuesday night we had a brand new rigging grid in the warehouse. 

With all of our training efforts, the area our apprentices have been light on is getting hands-on practice in flying P.A. Until now, this begins to happen when our apprentices start to work on their first shows towards the end of their apprenticeships. We wanted to help our apprentices ramp up on these skills so they can hit the ground running on their first shows. 

The grid can be used for many P.A. hang configurations. A reasonable maximum being a main hang, second hang, sub hang and a third hang for 270 degree coverage (using a cable bridge) plus an amp cart.  Therefore, one side of a large arena or stadium PA. Our aim is to start the PA rigging programme in March. 

As part of our LSA series Figure 53 joined us to give a thorough understanding of their software, QLab. These sessions were taught by project manager and sound designer, Sam Kusnetz.

Sam took the class through all the functions in Qlab relating to audio. These included the basics of creating and editing a cue list, as well as the integration with timecode, lighting and video. The session also covered the subjects of how Qlab deals with licensing and redundancy. Towards the end of the class Sam began to look at the advanced ideas of scripting for Qlab which can enable a more flexible and efficient workflow.

The session was informative and engaging, with lots of examples of how the principles built in to QLab can and have aided a performance. 

In the evening, Sam was joined by well respected sound designer and theatre sound pioneer; John Leonard. The pair discussed the art of sound technology over John’s career. Ranging from the use of multiple 78 rpm turn tables for sound effects playback to modern day Qlab. John also spoke about his time as a field recordist and how this helped him to fulfill even the most demanding brief.

A thoroughly enjoyable evening and big thanks to both Sam and John for their time and valuable information  given to us.

A busy start to 2019!

DECEMBER NEWS

In December we were out with Mumford and Sons in the USA, in the UK with Black Stone Cherry, Josh Groban, Anne-Marie and The War on Drugs, who were also touring in Europe. 

One off events included the Mary Poppins Film Premier at the Royal Albert Hall, Christmas without Tears with Harry Shearer & Judith Owen at the May Fair Hotel and the charity Warchild hosted a show at the Porchester Halls.

The final load out from the warehouse on the 21st December went to the Royal Albert Hall for Cirque du Soleil - to kick off 2019.

In December we hosted another great LSA event. During the day Tom Rundle from Yamaha provided training on the PM-10 consoles and Rio & DSP-R10 racks, covering advanced set up, configuration & networking including Yamaha’s new TWINLANe. This included the first dual redundant DSP-R10 setup in the UK. The session allowed our engineers to go in depth in with the system and explore the console to it’s absolute limits.  

For the evening’s LSA  session Tom Waterman from Universal Audio joined forces with Tom Rundle from Yamaha to talk about the UAD live rack and how easily this interfaces with Yamaha consoles. UADs industry leading plugin quality, with extremely simple MADI integration, coupled with the compact, flexible and powerful QL system creates an incredibly compact system.

Big thanks to Tom Rundle and Tom Waterman - a very valuable day.

We look forward to providing more LSA sessions in 2019

NOVEMBER NEWS

We were out touring with Mumford & Sons, Black Stone Cherry, The War on Drugs, You Me At Six, Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds, Ben Howard, Robbie Williams, Bocelli, Childish Gambino, Greta Van Fleet, Jacky Cheung and Jamiroquai

We had one off shows such as Children in Need Rocks, Jorja Smith and a one off very special show at the Roundhouse - Music 4 Mental Health, presented by award-winning mental health campaign #IAMWHOLE, a groundbreaking new initiative set to bring incredible individuals, influential communities and the most prolific names in British music together for an unforgettable fundraising concert.

The night was hosted by Jordan Stephens, who is half of the chart-topping Rizzle Kicks and also the #IAMWHOLE founding ambassador. The show featured Ed Sheeran, Anne-Marie, James Arthur, Ella Eyre and Olly Murs plus other special guests.

Britannia Row was also the setting for a day of filming in November. The project was in support of and to promote our 3 year Live Sound Production BSc hons degree course which we run in conjunction with South Thames College.

ZuluTango TV run by Sankha Guha were hired to produce the short promotional video. The video is due to be released by mid December and can be viewed on our website.

Big thanks go to Marcel our Warehouse Manager for enhancing the Production with some fine acting and to him and his team in the warehouse for their technical support - and for putting up with a live band during the working day! The band were all music students from South Thames College. Great job all!

On Tuesday 14th November Tom Williams from DiGiCo came over to Britannia Row to provide us with a day of training. 
We ran two sessions, basic and advanced SD series set-up network. This enable us to cover aspects like how desks & racks talk to each other, fault indicators and how to use them/procedures to follow, general fault finding procedures and pathways and checking procedures to make sure that the infrastructure is ‘happy’.

Britannia Row is keen to keep improving our warehouse basic knowledge and provide more tools for people to use in their daily tasks. The attendees were a mixture of full time employees, warehouse operatives and apprentices.
Enhancing and spreading knowledge will help us deliver warehouse daily challenges and expectations of our clients.

During the evening Tom then hosted an exclusive look into the Area4 system for the new Live Sound Advanced series at Britania Row. A presentation and practical demonstration of how to implement and use the Area4 was provided.

A hive of activity in the Britannia Row warehouse once again!

OCTOBER NEWS

October was another busy month at Britannia Row! 

We were touring the UK and Europe with Robert Plant, Mumford & Sons, Andrea Bocelli, Cliff Richard, BTS & Jorja Smith.

'K-pop' sensations BTS, aka Bangtan Boys performed to capacity audiences for their debut O2 London Arena shows. This was the Korean boy bands first ever UK performances.

The Cliff Richard Tour marks 60 years since his first hit ‘Move it’ in 1958!

We were touring in the USA  in October with Mumford & Sons, Foo Fighters, Jamiroquai, Josh Groban, Game of Thrones and Simple Minds and in South America with Robbie Williams & Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds.

Mumford & Sons Arena world tour is being done in the round for which we are supplying a 360 degree PA.

Other major events for us in the month included the much talked about Bohemian Rapsody Film Premiere, (More here) the BBC Radio 1 Teen Awards & the MTV European Music Awards prep and load out.

We were at the Amy Winehouse Foundation Gala. Britannia Row had been the sound company for Amy Winehouse throughout her career.              
                
Britannia Row were also very busy with the sporting world! We had PA and crew out on  NFL games, Seattle Seahawks v’s Oakland Raders, Tennessee Titans v’s LA Chargers and  Philadelphia Eagles v’s Jacksonville Jaguars, all at Wembley Stadium. We also had equipment on the Rugby League Super League Final in Old Trafford on the 13^th October for Warrington Wolves v’s Wigan Warriors.  

This month we delivered another Live Sound Advanced Session at the Britannia Row warehouse.

Sherif El Barbari and Tony Szabo of L-Acoustics gave us a great overview on L-ISA and Immersive Audio on 10th October. Tony travelled from France that day and returned the next day sepcifically to give us the talk. Our thanks go out to L-Acoustics, Tony and Sherif for a most informative evening. So far we have used L-ISA imersive audio on the Classic Brits and Julia & Angus Stone, both shows at the Royal Albert Hall back in June and on some Childish Gambino dates in the U.S in September.

Both of our first LSA sessions have achieved a full house!

SEPTEMBER NEWS

This month Britannia Row Productions & Training were proud to launch their new Live Sound Advanced sessions.

These LSA sessions are being held on the second Wednesday evening of every month with a talk from 6.30pm – 8.00pm with an hour of chat and networking from 8.00pm to 9.00pm. They are being hosted by Britannia Row Productions in conjunction with Britannia Row Productions Training and will be held at Britannia Row in Twickenham

All audio professionals are welcome subject to available places.

At the first ever LSA session Britannia Row Productions General Manager,  Nicola Amoruso made an introduction to LSA followed by a mixing master class by Marcel Van Limbeek.

Sherif El Barbari and Tony Szabo of L-Acoustics will be giving us an overview on L-ISA and Immersive Audio in October.

In November, Digico will be discussing the possibilities of their new Area 4 matrix for use with multi- band and artist bills and multi room locations while in December Universal Audio and Yamaha will be telling us about the new UA plug-ins for Yamaha consoles. The new year program kicks off with a session from Q-Lab in January.

The full list of sessions can be viewed at https://www.britanniarow.com/LSAsessions/

Britannia Row presented at this years PLASA, which commenced with a talk from Britannia Row Director/ Britannia Row Training Managing Director Mike Lowe who spoke abut why Britannia Row got in to training and the need for training in this industry.

This was followed by a session on System Design, Prediction, Analysis & Optimisation presented by Luca Stefani - Course Director, Britannia Row Productions Training & Josh Lloyd - Technical Projects Manager, Britannia Row Productions.

Following on from this was a panel discussion on the System Design & the future with Immersive Audio which was moderated by Marcel Van Limbeek -  Warehouse & Training Manager at Britannia Row Productions with panellists: Dave Bigg- Product Specialist, Digico, Shaun Clair – V.P. of Sales, Clair Global Corporation, Bryan Grant – M.D. Britannia Row Productions, Dave Hayden - Outboard Timax, Josh Lloyd – Technical Project Manager, Britannia Row Productions, Tony Szabo – Head of Application, Touring, L-Acoustics & Scott Willsallen – Auditoria / Sound Designer