The Prince of Wales theatre is currently home to a spectacular theatrical concert, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the world's most successful rock'n'roll band. The concert features over twenty of the The Beatles' greatest hits, with Gareth Owen's sound design featuring a big d&b audiotechnik V-Series system.

Put four guys on stage playing a string of The Beatles' hit songs charting the band's rise to fame, add the merest sprinkling of dialogue, and you have the recipe for Let it Be. For veteran sound designer Gareth Owen, one of the show's main challenges was to recreate the music in such a way that it would sound authentic, retaining all the effects and qualities of the original numbers, while still working in a modern context. Those that attended some of the big 60s stadium gigs recall only too well that you couldn't hear a thing! So this theatrical concert was all about striking the right balance, giving audiences the feel of the originals with a top quality West End sound.

Gareth chose the new V-Series line array system from d&b audiotechnik for the job, having worked closely for the past few years with the innovative T-series. This was one of the V-Series very first theatrical deployments, and Gareth is impressed with the results:

"I have loved working with the T-Series, combining great sound with a compact nature which allows me to shoe horn it in to no end of compact theatrical spaces. The V-Series is the next size up in d&b's new arsenal of line arrays - perfect for a show of this nature and it fits well into a bigger theatre like the Prince of Wales. It sounds absolutely superb – just what we needed, delivering absolute clarity with a great rock'n'roll sound. Add to this the VSUB, which is quite simply one of the best sounding subs I have ever heard and the net result is that you get a huge sound out of a pretty compact box."

Gareth's system includes Digidesign Venues for mixing combined with Shure PM1000 in-ears and KSM9 vocal mics, (in the champagne colour) – adding to the authenticity of the piece.

The sound crew for the show include Luke Hyde as production engineer, associate sound designer Ollie Steel, head of sound Piers Archer, and monitor engineer Zoe Blackford – who has really got her hands full on the show, as Gareth explains:
"There is a pool of fifteen musicians that play The Beatles, performing in multiple possible combinations! Zoe has six in-ear monitor mixes to deal with at any one time, as well as this added complication of an infinitely variable cast. And that's not all - each performer tends to want a different mix depending on who they are playing with. Zoe is quite simply brilliant – I have never seen anyone deal with such a challenging situation in such a calm and patient manner. She just smiles, says "no problem" and gets on with it!"