View the full album here.

This means that we have equipment and engineers available this week. If you have been let down by your sound company due to the adverse weather conditions, or are a sound hire company yourself and need us to cover one of your gigs, please do not hesitate to give us a ring on (01) 524 2720 and hopefully we will be able to help you out.

Thanks to Eoin at AMP Systems for providing a wonderful sound system for our party in Solas, Dublin. He braved a snow blizzard to get it out to us, so I really appreciate their dedication to their clients. He was always friendly, helpful, and flexible.

Thanks again!

– Louise Bernstein

Sunday the 12th of September meant an early start for the AMP Sound Systems crew! Just off from a late night at Darver Festival, we were in Phibsborough in Dublin for Phizzfest. AMP Sound Systems was subhired by The Sound & Music Co. to provide sound equipment and staff to the event.

The gig consisted of everything from rock to trad! The sun shone down all day – with the clouds only bursting as the case was put on the desk and the punters had gone home! It was a fabulous festival, and we hope to get the chance to work on it next year. Well done to all the organizers and thanks Vinny for putting the gig our way.

Now just for Vinny… The rig consisted of a centre-cluster of 4 x 600W DAP Subwoofers, 2 600W Mid-Highs and 3 EV sxA250′s for monitoring. FoH and wedges were mixed on a Yamaha LS9-16 by Eoin O’Grady.

Now the rest of ya’s can go enjoy some pictures:

The rig consisted of a groundstacked array of 4 D&B Q7′s on top of 2 QSubs on either side of the stage, with a centre cluster of Meyer HP600′s. FoH was mixed on a Yamaha M7CL. Wedges were a combination of D&B Max12′s and EV sxA250′s.

Click on an image below to enlarge!

Congratulations to Eoin Dixon Murphy who won our recent competition for a pair of Electric Picnic tickets! Eoin’s review received 335 votes.

Hope you enjoyed the weekend Eoin, and thanks for entering the competition!

Here is the winning review:

Stevie Wonder, The o2, 24th of June 2010

As I awoke early on a sunny Thursday in June, I knew it was going to be a long and interesting day. Today was the day my Dad was getting married for the second time, and also the day of the much anticipated Stevie Wonder concert. It’s obvious to say that I was much more excited about the latter.

“How can you go to both?” my friends asked. I wasn’t sure, but I knew I couldn’t miss either. I accidentally found out my Dad was getting remarried a couple of months before he officially told me, so in keeping with our relationship’s secrecy, I decided not to tell him that I was bailing half way through the ceremony to head to the gig. I thought it would be much easier to do if I kept it a secret until a few days beforehand. It would at least buy me some time, and it seemed only fair. The plan was to arrive, have dinner, converse with relatives and then hop in a taxi to The o2. The wedding was being held in Merrion Square, so it seemed fairly possible to do both. Either way, seeing Stevie Wonder perform was a once in a life time experience, it had to be done. It’s not like my Dad hadn’t been married before!

However Stevie wasn’t the only musical act I was going to witness that day, as we all know that with weddings comes the dreaded wedding band. Yet I didn’t know what to think because in this case it wasn’t your typical performer. A long time friend of my Dad, Paul Harrington, volunteered to play. For those of you who are unfirmiliar with this man, Paul won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ireland back in 1994 with the hit “Rock N Roll Kid”. The question I asked myself was “What’s cheesier, the Eurovision or wedding bands?”. To my surprise he was actually quite good, and invited me up on stage to perform a few songs with his band. His trio consisted of keys, guitar and drums, playing an array of classics and ultimately producing an impressive and powerful sound.

Realising the time, I downed my drink and headed for the door. Staying in my suit and arriving at The o2 looking slick was probably the best idea I’d had all day. A passerby commented saying that my brother and I looked as if we were in the mafia. I’m yet to decide whether this was a good thing or not. We found our seats, and everything was going perfectly. There was no support act, so this meant an extra long show of Wonder. The lights dimmed, and Stevie appeared on stage.

Thirty seconds into it and I was already impressed. He’d managed to walk up the little side steps, across the stage and find his seat at his piano without any help. Just incase you didn’t know… he’s blind. This was followed by a string of hits both old and new – from his 1968 hit classic “For Once In My Life” to his later 1984 ballad “I Just Called To Say I Love You”. A nice touch was his cover of the Michael Jackson song “Human Nature”, as he preformed it as a dedication to The King of Pop on the eve of the first anniversary of his death.

Backed by a massive band (which consisted of guitarists, a drummer, a bass player, percussionists, sax players, keyboard players and backing singers.) his performance lived up to my expectations. He produced hit after hit and had the crowd calling out for more, chanting “Stevie, Stevie!” at every short moment of silence. He captivated the audience with every riff, and proved that even at the age of 60, he’s still got the “funk”.

As the gig came to an end, I was left awestruck and satisfied. With a setlist of 24 songs, Stevie gave a magnificent performance of all. His voice was sublime and definitely stood the test of time, and his ability to jump between four different instruments throughout was inspiring. His talent was truly mesmerizing.

I can definitely say that skipping out on my Dad’s wedding to see one of my favorite artists of all time was well worth it. Let’s just hope he’s still married the next time Stevie’s in town!

• Go to the AMP Sound Systems Facebook page.
• Find the review you would like to vote for. It should look something like this:

• Click the link to view the entry. Or visit the post here to read them all. Click “Like” to vote for this person’s review.

NOTE: Only posts containing “NAME’s gig review for our Electric Picnic Competition” can be used to vote on.

If you would like to enter our competition to win a pair of Electric Picnic tickets, then visit this post!

We happen to have a few too many tickets for Electric Picnic, and we would love you to have a pair!

We want our dedicated readers to write a blog post for us! Actually, even if this is your first visit to the blog, you still can enter! Anyway, all you need to do is write a short review of a gig you were at recently. This winning review will be posted as our next blog post, and the lucky author will get a pair of tickets to Electric Picnic 2010!

All you have to do is write your review in a comment below. Tell us if you enjoyed the gig or not, and why. It could be a mainstream famous band, or a small local artist you saw in your local pub. Mention the name of the band, the venue, the type of music etc.

Your review will be linked to from our Facebook page. People can vote for your review by clicking “Like” on your review which will look like this:

Tell all your friends that you are in the competition, and they might just vote for you! Send them this link: http://www.facebook.com/AMPSoundSystems and tell them to “like” their favourite review! They might have to click the “Wall” tab to get to the review.

The user with the most “likes” by midnight on the 31st of August will get their review published and will have a pair of tickets to Electric Picnic waiting for them at the gate!

We may email the winner to request photo’s of the gig to improve the blog post, but if you didn’t take any, don’t worry – a press photo or band logo will do! A mention of the sound quality at the gig may impress the techie subscribers we have on board and may gain you a vote!

Get writing your review, and we wish you the best of luck!

NOTE:

The review must be entirely your own work. We will take this very seriously and check up on all entries.

2 guest judges will apply a weight of 20 “likes” each to the review that they deem to be the best.

Only posts on the Facebook page containing “NAME’s gig review for our Electric Picnic Competition” can be used to vote on.

Guess what I am going to say now… Yep – lets use an example!!!!

First you select your desk...

I was booked for a gig with the Dublin Glee Choir. The spec was 9 choir mics, one solo mic, keyboard, guitar and drum machine. 3 monitor mixes. The LS9 was the perfect choice for this gig. Due to venue restrictions, I was aware that it would be a tight get-in. I needed to get as much done as I possibly could before the gig. But the LS9 wasn’t going to be back untill Saturday morning – the day of the gig. In comes Studio Manager – the offline editing software for the family of Yamaha digital mixing consoles.

...then start working on your show...

All you need to do is download the specific editor for whatever type of desk you have. I frequently use the 01V, the LS9, the M7CL and the PM5D, so I have these editors installed. As I was going to be using the LS9, I just selected that. You then arrive at an overview page showing the mixer on your screen. Here you can click rather than hunt through pages on the actual board. Silly things like turning on phantom power can be achieved in seconds on all the channels that need it.

A blank show file also starts with all the dynamics turned off. I like to have the compressors on, but with the threshold at -8dB so I can bring the compressor in when I need it, without having to flick over to the ON button, so I just click DYN2 on all the channels and this is done for me!

It is also very easy to set your mute groups and channel links. I wanted the choir on one mute group, the band on another, and the effects on a different group. This is achieved very easily and quickly on the “Mute Group” page. It would take considerable time to do this on the console, and if under a lot of pressure, you may just not have time to do it.

Input Patch List

Input and Output routing is much easier in Studio Manager rather than on the desk. You get a visual view of it in Studio Manager and can change your patch with a few clicks.

And aside from all the wonders it can do before the show, it also comes in very handy during the gig. You can leave any screen open in studio manager, while you work on a separate screen on the desk. For example, you could have the EQ screen open on the console, while monitoring all the input meters on the computer screen!

I am very impressed with Studio Manager, and am looking forward to using software from other manufacturers for their boards!

I replaced the audio on this video, as I have not yet got permission from the bands to use it, but the video should give you a quick overview of the buzz at the festival this year.

Monitors were D&B Max 12′s and the console was the Yamaha M7CL.