The most recent visit of US rock band Flying Colors to the stages of Europe saw a sound Salzbrenner Media’s Polaris evolution console and Nio xcel Dante audio interfaces in action in Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands and UK. 

The band’s FOH engineer and tour manager Daniel Schindler chose the combination of Polaris evolution and Nio xcel due to their efficiency and sound quality: ‘On tour, everything happens fast and, since a DVD is produced during that tour, the converter quality has to be excellent,’ he reveals.

‘With Polaris evolution, you only need two minutes to set up the FOH and get everything going without any additional helping hands. Polaris evolution also covers the routing of the record systems and the outboard via Nexus [router]. This saves a lot of time and the sound quality is just amazing – especially, the multiple gain controls of Nio xcel 1201 allow a recording level independent from the FOH gain. Otherwise, this would only have been possible with an additional split and additional converters.’

For the tour, a Polaris evolution system with 128 I/O ports (Dante), two Nexus Base Devices (connected to Polaris evolution via XDIP), five Nio xcel 1201, two Nio xcel 1202, a Nio xcel 1101 and a Nio xcel 1102 were used. Furthermore, there were two Dante recording systems as well as a Waves Impact Server (which was connected via Madi/DigiGrid MGO and Nexus) were stationed at FOH. All I/O routing, as well as the Waves Cue link and DAWs, were handled by Polaris evolution cue groups. ‘It’s a fantastic set-up; I would go on tour with it again any time,’ Schindler adds.

More: www.salzbrenner.com