Flushing, NY (October 3, 2017)—Owner and chief engineer Michael Comstock upgraded the console in his Indre Mobile truck to a DiGiCo SD9 just in time to mix and stream 40 bands from this year’s Meadows Music and Arts Festival at the the American Eagle Outfitters Stage, one of the event’s numerous stages.
The Meadows Music and Arts Festival, held from September 15 to 17 at CitiField in Queens’ Flushing neighborhood, brought together Red Hot Chili Peppers, Weezer, Bassnectar, Jay-Z and others. Jay-Z’s high-resolution Tidal service live-streamed the performances from the festival’s four stages, with four remote production trucks mixing the music for online delivery.
Music Mix Mobile handled the Meadows and Queens Boulevard stages, bringing in its Lawo-based Eclipse and Avid-based Phoenix trucks, with Jay Vicari and Ron Reeves mixing in them, respectively. The fourth stage—Shea—was tackled by Record Plant Remote, with Kooster Mcallister taking on the mixing duties.
Crew and mixers from all three broadcast outfits onsite—Indre, Music Mix Mobile and Record Plant Remote—helped bring The Meadows Music and Arts Festival to the masses via streaming. Photo: Music Mix Mobile.
Listeners to the American Eagle Outfitters Stage stream from Comstock’s truck got to hear artists including Marian Hill, Milky Chance, De La Soul, Antibalas, Arkells, Ghostface Killah and Lido through the SD9 desk.
Indre’s need for a console refresh happened to coincide with the looming deadline for the festival. “I’d used an SD console before, but as a front-of-house mixing console, not in a broadcast application. I knew I wanted to go with a DiGiCo, but I was still very new to its broadcast workflow,” Comstock explains.
“Any issue that came up—and they were all minor things—was a result of my own and assistant engineer/A2 Mike Richelle’s newness to the SD9 work surface,” he said. “And most of those were resolved with a quick phone call, text or email to DiGiCo’s support, which was amazing. They were there for us 24/7 throughout the festival, even on a Sunday.”
Together, they mixed 40 bands on the the American Eagle Outfitters Stage over 72 hours. Indre interfaced to the MADI network between the stages, trucks and satellite uplink via a DiGiCo Little Red Box. “That box gave us another 64 I/O, which doubled the channel count,” says Comstock.
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