Despite personnel changes over a career that began in the 1970s, British glam rock group The Sweet continue to tour internationally. Handling their monitors since 2014 is Daniela Seggewiss, who has relied on an Allen & Heath SQ-5 console from the outset.

‘The first consideration for me when planning to buy a console was the size and weight as I needed the set-up to be able to fly,’ she says. ‘As a monitor engineer, I also need a good number of outputs, and the SQ5 with a DX168 stagebox provides me with 32-input/20-output in an incredibly small setup. But of course with all that processing power under the hood, that is not small at all.’

The SQ-5 and DX168 stagebox both fit together in a iM2950 Pelican Storm Case, keeping things compact and below the weight limit for most major airlines. Beyond the form factor, Seggewiss likes the workflow of SQ, specifically the dedicated MIX buttons in the master section that control which bus the faders send to, as well as the customisable fader layout.

‘The fact that I can change the surface layout to anything I need is especially important when using a small console,’ she says. ‘I need to be able to have the most important channels always at my fingertips to make quick adjustments without having to look at the console for too long.’

For audio processing, Seggewiss notes that she has upgraded her SQ with the Dynamic Trio Pack, which provides dynamics tools such as Dynamic EQ and a Multiband Compressor, as well as a flexible De-Esser. These optional RackFX add-ons can be easily inserted on input channels, groups, auxiliaries or the main mixup (up to eight instances) as needed.

‘I very much like to use multiband compression on IEM mixes,’ she says. ‘The best feedback I get from the band is nothing at all. I am able to create the sound they are used to on SQ, with the bonus that this sound now travels with us due to the small footprint of the set-up.’

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