New Kansas DVD produced by Real 2 Reel Studios, using a SoundField Mark V mic and SP451 5.1 processor. LAS VEGAS, NEVADA: With a career span of almost 30 years and 19 albums, Kansas is always looking for new ways to seize the spirit of their music and performances. Having recorded eight gold albums, three sextuple-Platinum albums, and one platinum live album and a million-selling gold single, "Dust in the Wind", the band has constantly demanded the best in quality of the latest recording devices. Kansas recently took a venture into a new world of DVD 5.1 surround audio and film production with the help of a Georgia favorite for film and audio production, Real 2 Reel Studios. Recording a live performance in Atlanta for a new Kansas live DVD entitled "Device Voice Drum", Real 2 Reel incorporated the new Soundfield Mark V/SP451 5.1 surround microphone package to capture live realism and spaciousness from the concert performance. The live concert, held at the Earthlink Live venue in Atlanta, Georgia on June 15th, was a DVD filming exclusive performed for hard-core Kansas fans only. In fact, the only place to buy tickets to the event was on the band's website. Real 2 Reel's project director Michie Turpin, and director of photography Steve Shepard used six film cameras, four video cameras, and a Sony 3348 digital tape machine recording on all 48 tracks to capture the live performance. Six of the 48 digital audio tracks were dedicated to the SP451's 5.1 outputs for the entire concert for ambience and 5.1 surround. The elaborate live production included a string quartet for "Dust in the Wind" and a seventy-four person choir for the song "Preacher", and included performances of all the Kansas greats. The concert closed with "Carry on Wayward Son". Even with intelligent mic placement, recording multi-channel 5.1 surround audio for such a production could bring about frequency cancellation problems that could ruin an entire mix. As co-owner and engineer Steve Rawls explains, "One of our concerns was how we were going to get the live feel and sound of the concert for the 5.1 mix without frequency cancellation or physical mic placement problems. Those concerns turned out to not even be an issue once we introduced the Mark V/SP451 system. It captured all of the wonderful ambience of the concert flawlessly and beautifully from one microphone." The Soundfield Mark V/SP451 surround microphone package utilizes the Mark V's special capsule array and a separate SP451 preamp/processor control unit to provide multi-channel audio from a single point source. The SP451 also offers enhanced control over right, left and right/left surround positions by plus or minus forty-five degrees from "center", which gives engineers a unique approach to providing audio to the top-notch 5.1 outputs in truly creative ways. "This microphone system does everything it is advertised to do," states Rawls. "You can literally change the position of the microphone in the room without ever physically touching the microphone. It's phenomenal, and the sound of the Mark V matched with the SP451's preamps is simply incredible." The Mark V microphone was suspended about ten feet down from the grid with the lighting trusses, about half way between the band's front line and the back wall of the venue. The control unit was located in the production booth, above and behind the crowd. Microphones used on the choir were AKG414s, a Neumann TLM 193, and Neumann TLM 103s. The preamps used were 32 channels of Millennia Media for vocals and keyboards and 16 channels of API microphone preamps for drums and violins. Film cameras were all Aton XTR super 16mm format production packages with the exception of one Arri SR2 film camera as a handheld. The live DVD, "Device Voice Drum", which is planned to be released on October 8th, is now in the post-production phase with Real 2 Reel. The engineers and band are thrilled with what the Mark V/SP451 system has done for the production. Rawls states, "When the band came in to listen to the song our engineer James Cobb just eased up on the faders for the Mark V/SP451 surround system and literally three of the five of the band members said 'What did you just do? That sounds great.' All he had done was bring up the Soundfield surround 'mic' for ambience to give the mix that 'concert feel'. Therefore, we will be using the Mark V and SP451 largely in the surround mix. The ambience and the realism it added to the tracks is spectacular and wonderful," explains Rawls. In addition to the live DVD, an audio companion double-disk CD set is planned for release. The DVD will contain approximately an hour and forty minutes of concert footage with forty minutes of additional content. Additional content will contain behind the scenes footage, interviews with the band members, and a Kansas discography. |
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