KID KOALA ON CANS

YES, THEY’RE ALL WEARING HEADPHONES. PA STACK, ANYONE?

Some of you may need to squint your eyes a bit to get your head around this one… we did. Kid Koala a.k.a Eric San is a Canadian DJ and “turntablist” (not to be confused with “mock turntablism” apparently) who uses a quirky and eclectic selection of samples during his performances to create nothing less than a very unique show. Suffice to say that despite the name–complete with a furry costume–Kid Koala isn’t a “kids” show, but you can excused for assuming that. For his latest projects KK has given up using main PA speakers and instead hands out headphones to every member of his audience–fortunately he doesn’t often play Madison Square Garden. To achieve this Kid Koala is using a compact Allen and Heath iLive system to mix his new Space Cadet live show. Touring venues such as planetariums, biospheres and space museums, Kid Koala performs a live rendition of his latest album, Space Cadet, and each member of the audience is equipped with their own set of headphones installed in individual inflatable ‘space pods’. The show uses an iDR-16 MixRack and an xDR-16 expander unit to cater for the large number of mixes required. The show format requires a 32-channel mixer, which ordinarily would take close to 4 hours to set up venue to venue, however the iLive system significantly reduces that time. The system has enough outputs to feed the headphone transmitters, surround ambient speakers and subwoofers. Also, with the iLive Mixpad app, an iPad and wifi router, the operators can check and adjust the mix from anywhere in the room in real time.

Why Kid Koala for a Canadian? We can only assume the “Kid Canadian Man-Eating Grizzly Bear” doesn’t quite work for Eric.

AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR (A&H): Technical Audio Group iw@tag.com.au