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Scorpions on tour with Yamaha CL5s

Scorpions on tour with Yamaha CL5s

After half a century, German hard rockers the Scorpions are still playing live all over the world. Ticket demand for the 60 shows of the band’s 50th Anniversary world tour in 2015 was so great that more than 30 extra dates have (so far) been added for 2016.

 

Achim Schulze and Glen Schmeling - respectively the band’s front of house and monitor engineers - first used Yamaha CL5 digital consoles in 2013, when the band played three MTV Unplugged shows at the open air Lycabettus Theatre in Athens. Supplied by Hamburg-based Blue Noise and supported by the company’s chief audio technician Michi Gerhards, three CL5s and three Rio3224-D i/o units were used, a system replicated for four more Unplugged shows in Germany the following year.

 

Schmeling and Schulze chose the CL5s for the band’s 50th Anniversary world tour again. They settled on a rig of a CL5 each and two Rio3224-Ds connected via Dante, meaning there was no analogue splitter involved.

 

“We didn’t want to change model or brand of console during the tour and CLs are easily available worldwide. This significantly cut touring costs because we didn’t have to take them with us,” says Schmeling about the 2015 tour. “We carried guitars, some special keyboards and service gear, but all PA, video and lighting equipment was rented in 60 locations right across the globe, including China, Korea, Russia, Ukraine, USA, Canada, South America, Germany, France, Belgium, the UK, Finland and the Baltic states. The Scorpions are known to play at the craziest places; we were even able to rent CL5s and Rio3224-Ds in the Faroe Islands.”

 

Schmeling and Schulze only had to take their show files on USB sticks. “We loaded the show along with the network files and were ready for virtual soundcheck within 15 minutes, using an ordinary Macbook laptop and Dante Virtual Sound Card,” says Schmeling. “Achim also used the Virtual Sound Card feature to make multitrack recordings of many of the shows.”

 

Having toured like this for much of 2015, both Schmeling and Schulze will be using the CL5 again in 2016. “Choosing CLs was definitely the right decision,” says Schmeling. “Of course there were some minor issues with things like malfunctioning network cables and underperforming switches supplied by rental companies, but anything like this was promptly fixed by phone support from Yamaha Europe. Arthur Koll at Yamaha suggested I carry a set of four Cisco SG300/10 switches. For the 2016 dates I will carry Yamaha’s new SWP1 range of Dante switches.” Both engineers will be mixing shows on the new Yamaha Rivage PM10, but will also continue with the CL5.

 

(Photos: Mikhail Vaneev/Waniewsk/Achim Schulze/Yamaha)

 

www.yamahacommercialaudio.com

 

Scorpions on tour with Yamaha CL5sScorpions on tour with Yamaha CL5s

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