For six weekends at the start of 2021, New Zealand rock band SIX60 took to the road for their Six60 Saturdays tour of their home country. Playing outdoor venues with a changing line-up of guests to the largest audiences seen since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, monitor engineer David O’Brien chose a DiGiCo SD7 console to give the bands a flawless mix.

Having various desks from DiGiCo’s SD Range, O’Brien rates both their ease-of-use and reliability. With the console set up simply and using nothing other than an SD-Rack, the SD7 served both Six60 and their support acts and, with the support changing for each gig, the tour ran much like a festival with mixes built on the fly from behind an LED wall without any line of sight.

‘I chose the SD7 because it offered a few features I think make for a good workflow,’ O’Brien says. ‘Having two master fader banks allows me to put the tech/shout mixes on the upper master bank while keeping the band outputs on the lower bank. I also like having three screens which provide a constant overview without needing anything external. This keeps my Snapshots and chosen channels in a prime position, making monitoring them easy. Having a dedicated gain encoder on the top row also helps to have everything at your fingertips.’

O’Brien also notes that the SD7 gave him confidence programming scenes between set and stage changes, confident that when he pressed ‘fire’, it would work. Dual engines, meanwhile, offered him peace of mind when touring through regional New Zealand where it would not have been possible to get a replacement console.

Along with the SD7, Six60’s long-time audio supplier, College Hill Productions, provided a substantial L-Acoustics K Series system, ensuring great audio for both bands and audience.

‘Although logistically these are still tough times, we’ve been lucky on this run and already played to over 100,000 fans,’ says at College Hill Productions Manager, Reeco Adriaansen.

‘And the console performed great,’ adds O’Brien. ‘It got a good work-out and everyone couldn’t have been happier.’