Having sold out her recent North American tour leg, Olivia Rodrigo is now travelling across Europe and the UK in support of her RIAA double-platinum certified debut album, Sour.
Backed by a five-piece live rock band, the 19-year-old former Disney TV star is supported by Clair Global as sound reinforcement partner for the full run, using a pair of new DiGiCo mixing consoles for control – a Quantum338 for FOH engineer Brian Pomp, and a Quantum5 for monitor mixer Seamus Fenton.
‘I first toured on a D5 Live back in 2004 and have pretty much been using SD-Range consoles since they were available,’ says Pomp. ‘Even though I’ve used a lot of different consoles over the years, I keep gravitating back to DiGiCos due to their endless features. They just do everything.’
The Sour tour does mark the first time he’s manned the new Quantum338, however: ‘I absolutely love mixing on this desk,’ he reports. ‘Its workflow and ergonomics are perfect for me – everything is laid out really well. It looks great – the daylight screens are stunning – and it sounds great, especially with the 32-bit cards we’re using in the SD-Rack and SD-Mini Rack that Seamus and I share on a loop.
‘Also, the new Quantum features with the Mustard dynamics and EQ section make a huge difference. Having the All Pass Filter option on the Mustard EQ is a game-changer for taming some unruly frequencies, particularly in a vocal mic. The SD dynamics section was always intended to be neutral in every way possible and to not impart anything to the signal, which forced users to go outside of the desk, but with the Mustard section, I can get a lot of character now that just wasn’t available before. I can see myself opting for this desk for a long time.’
Pomp uses a Waves SoundGrid Server with SuperRack to handle utility plug-ins like NS1 on guitars and bass ‘to cut down on some inherent noise’ as well as some transient shaping plugins on drums. For tonal processing and other effects, he turns to UAD-2 Live Rack. ‘The emulations of analogue modules are superior to most things out there,’ he says. ‘That being said, I am using a lot of the desk’s onboard processing as the Mustard dynamics section is fantastic and those compressor choices are perfect for what I need them for.’
On the other end of the fibre in monitor world, Fenton is manning his mixes on a Quantum5 equipped with a DMI-Klang card. ‘I have used DiGiCo almost exclusively for over ten years, but this is the first time I have toured with Klang,’ he reveals. ‘This is pretty much a hard-hitting live rock and roll show with minimal use of tracks, but I’m using the Klang to position the playback channels so they add to the live instruments without cluttering the mixes, and it has definitely made a difference. But the real game-changer with Klang, in my opinion, is the click track. I realise that it is not the most exciting input on the channel list, but positioning it high and in front is revolutionary. It sits in the mixes at a lower level so there is less fatigue and the brain just seems to know exactly where it is. I know I’ll be incorporating more Klang channels into the mixes as I go on.’
Fenton is currently supplying 11 IEM mixes, plus a couple of sub outputs for the drummer and bassist, from his Quantum5. ‘On monitors, it’s all about speed of operation and having a full audio toolkit at your disposal, and the Quantum5 has that in spades,’ he shares. ‘It’s a great monitor workhorse – it’s a good size and I do particularly love it for its plentiful and well-placed Macro buttons. I’m occasionally tempted to look at other console brands, but then realize that there inevitably seems to be something that they can’t do that I have always done on a DiGiCo.’
Although the monitor engineer doesn’t have a strong preference on which model he uses, what he says has now become ‘essential’ is that the desk has a Quantum engine. ‘The new engine brings so many excellent options to the table these days,’ he says. ‘I love the Nodal Processing, which has some serious benefits. The Mustard compressors have been a real game-changer on this tour as well, just for smoothing things out in a very musical way. Also, I’d rather not run external plug-in packages if I can help it, so the addition of the Spice Rack for me is a big thing. This is the first tour I have done since the Naga 6 dynamic EQ was added and I absolutely love it.
‘With the Quantum5, you always know where you are, and the console has performed faultlessly for me. One of the truly great things about the DiGiCo infrastructure and workflow is that if you can think it, you can pretty much do it.’
The Sour tour began in April in Portland, and wrapped up its North American run in May in San Francisco, having taken in NYC’s Radio City Music Hall and LA’s Greek Theatre. Following a brief break, the tour resumed in Hamburg, Germany, in June and will close with a two-night run at London’s Eventim Apollo in July.
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