SSL in control on The Cult’s Sonic Temple tour
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McGuire has been mixing The Cult for four years and used an L500 console for FOH duties on their previous outing. “It's literally just me and the monitor guy on this tour; I needed to get a desk that is powerful, phenomenally quick to set up, sonically geared for The Cult and can fit in the trailer. The SSL L300 was the perfect choice.”
McGuire says he loves mixing The Cult, and describes them as a good old school rock and roll band: no tracks, no click, everything is in the moment, and they give him license to mix.
“When we got ready for the Revolution 3 Tour last summer with Bush and Stone Temple Pilots, as I knew we'd be in a truck, I wanted to find my next platform for moving into 24-bit, 96kHz audio,” he reveals. “I'd spent a year with a different console, and there were some digital stereo image collapses happening, which was causing problems. I'd always wanted to try out the SSL, so that was my opportunity. Last year, Jessie Adamson at Sound Image put me in touch with SSL's Fernando [Guzman], and I’ve been using the consoles ever since. Their intuitive and allow me to quickly build show files, which is essential.”
From a sonic perspective, McGuire says the SSL takes The Cult's live shows to another level.
“The way this desk sounds, there is nothing like it. It's ridiculous. The reproduction through the SSL Super Analogue converters is surpassed by none, as far as I'm concerned.”
He concludes, “I just love waking up every day to go in to mix on that desk; it is so inspirational to me. I love that I am mixing a British band on a 30th year anniversary of a record release that was recorded on an SSL, and it's inspirational to me and look down on my desk and see 'SSL – Oxford, England'. It doesn't get any better than that.”
(Jim Evans)
