A Namibian artist with German roots EES (Eric Sell) is presently out on his Game Changer Tour of Germany along with live sound engineer Florian Hackenberg-Keßler and an Allen & Heath 48-channel SQ-5 mixing system.
Having released nine studio albums in Africa, EES and his backing band, The Yes-Ja! Band, rose to prominence in Germany after winning the X-Factor in 2018 with a blend of Kwaito, African House, Afro Pop and Afro-Reggae. When The Game Changer Tour was announced for November 2021, Hackenberg-Keßler decided he needed something lightweight, portable, and quick to set up and pack down.
Enter the 48-channel SQ-5, built on Allen & Heath’s XCVI 96kHz FPGA engine. And, with a comprehensive range of integrated processing tools and FX, he does not see the need to use any external processing. ‘I am super satisfied with everything the SQ-5 offers me – the compressors are great, and so are the reverbs,’ he says, ‘I use a lot of the ADT Doubler; it simply works well. Another plus is the low latency, and 96kHz operation. I use the USB interface at every show for multitrack recording. You don’t get all of this anywhere else in this price range.’
Although the SQ-5 is a relatively compact mixer, the 30 channels required by the band are easily handled by the 17-fader surface: ‘It works great because of the DCA spills. I get everything I need on one layer,’ he says. ‘It’s so flexible, you can layout the surface the way you want it so you don’t need any more faders.’
For stage I/O, two A&H DX168 expanders are deployed with cabling kept to a minimum. ‘I daisychain the DX168s,’ Hackenberg-Keßler explains, ‘I always order Cat cables locally, but I carry one myself as a backup. But the SQ consoles are great, they’ve taken every cable I’ve tried without problems, it has always been plug-and-play. The two DX168s are permanently installed in a case with cable harnesses to the respective musicians.’
All six members of The Yes-Ja! band rely on IEMs, and the introduction of the SQ-5 has allowed the musicians to control their monitor mixes via A&H’s SQ4You app. ‘It works extremely well,’ Hackenberg-Keßler reports. ‘We had two rehearsal days and everyone quickly got into the groove, the app is very easy to use.
‘To be honest, I’m always fascinated by this console – everything just works and it sounds great,’ he adds. ‘Allen & Heath has really made a mark with this thing.’
More: www.allen-heath.com
