Roland M-5000 OHRCA Live Mixing Console Lets the Sound Team for the Manhattan Transfer & Take 6 Summit Tour Succefully Manage a Complex Live Production

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Combining forces for the first time, The Manhattan Transfer and Take 6 - two of the most acclaimed, award-winning vocal groups in music - create an unforgettable concert experience on the Summit Tour. Between them, the two groups boast a remarkable 20 GRAMMY Awards and a wide range of styles. The tour also marks The Manhattan Transfer's 40th Anniversary of their debut recording on Atlantic Records, while Take 6 has been performing their innovative arrangements for 36 years now, demonstrating why this sextet is recognized as one of the preeminent a cappella groups in the world.

The Roland M-5000 OHRCA Live Mixing Console deployed at front-of-house for the Take 6 / The Manhattan Transfer tour.

Managing 10 voices plus a backup band is a complex task for FOH mixer Matt Svobodny and monitor mixer Bryan Farina, but using a pair of Roland M-5000 OHRCA Live Mixing Consoles, they help two of music's most legendary vocal groups perform a flawless show night after night. A typical Summit Tour show sees each group perform several pieces on their own, then combine on the next several numbers, then perform a few of each others' songs before bringing it all together on a combined performance of The Manhattan Transfer's hit Birdland as the closer. During the set, Svobodny - who also serves as Production Manager for the tour - is not only mixing the show for the audience but also handling Take 6's monitors from the same Roland M-5000 desk. He also has one other critical task: giving the vocalists their pitch cues using a piano app on an iPad that sends the key note to their in-ear monitors. It puts some extra pressure on me - I have to be careful and pick my moments as they're doing their between-song [patter], he says. The M-5000 really helps me in that regard. The scenes help limit the number of button pushes I have to do. Also, we have a 40-input show and ten of those as vocals, so I need to keep all of those and some other key things, such as certain effects returns, available on the faders. I can configure the layers in such a way that everything I need is always at my fingertips. On other consoles, I'd be going back and forth between layers to get at what I needed. On the M-5000, I can keep just about the whole show on one layer.

Monitor engineer Bryan Farina is having a similarly positive experience on his M-5000. The latency on the M-5000 is just right for IEMs, he says, noting that The Manhattan Transfer uses a combination of IEMs in one ear and wedges for monitors, always a tricky combination because of timing differentials. Also, the M-5000 sounds great, which enables me to focus on fine tuning mixes as opposed to constantly making EQ changes. Farina also likes the M-5000's onboard effects. I've been working with the M-5000 for a while now - I even own one - and it lets me work the way I want to for any situation, he says. Take 6 has a pretty sophisticated panning arrangement, and the M-5000 lets me give them what they need quickly and easily. I don't have to flip faders to get at what I need. It's all right there.

Take 6 and The Manhattan Transfer, combined as one ensemble for the collaborative portion of their concerts.

The Summit Tour also has a pair of Roland S-2416 digital snake stage units in the system. The S-2416 provides a 24 input x 16 output analog and 8 input x 8 output digital, for a total of 32 input and 24 output channels, all through just a pair of Cat-5 cables. Using the REAC ports, I can send a direct out from the FOH console to monitors, says Svobodny. (The Roland Ethernet Audio Communication protocol enables up to 40x40 channels of audio at 24-bit/96Khz to be transferred across a single Cat5e cable.) It's made the system simpler while also making it more reliable. In fact, says Svobodny, the Roland products are allowing him and Farina to manage a complex production that might have required twice as many people otherwise. We're just a small crew, but because of systems like the M-5000, we're able to travel separately in a cargo van and arrive ahead of the artists, letting them get more rest while we set up a sound system that's very manageable, he says. That's a great thing.

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Roland's professional A/V division is dedicated to providing solutions in support of audio and video professionals demanding excellence in both performance and functionality. Through the development and support of video and audio products, we endeavor to improve workflow and maximize creative possibilities in a variety of markets including Broadcast, Corporate, Education, Legal, Live Production, Sports, Theater, Theme Park, Videography, Visual Performance, Worship. Roland is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. For more information: http://proav.roland.com.

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