Peter Gabriel Uses Sony Oxford Plug-Ins for Olympic Performance

Peter Gabriel performed John Lennon’s “Imagine” at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games in Torino, Italy in February using Sony Oxford plug-ins. According to engineer Dickie Chappell, Gabriel wanted the same vocal sound that they had achieved while recording backing tracks in the studio. For the performance, Gabriel’s voice was processed live through Sony’s Oxford EQ, Dynamics and Reverb plug-ins, which ran in real time on a laptop and Digidesign Digi 002.

“I plugged into the monitor insert,” Chappell says, “and this was sent to the broadcast and front of house. I was worried about it initially, because if I’d lost the input on my laptop, the whole chain out to the world would have been lost. But it was stable and sounded great. All the sound departments were just fine using the feed from my laptop, and Peter was very happy having the studio mix sound in the stadium and for TV.”