Currently on the road with German metalcore band Electric Callboy on their Tekkno tour, monitor engineer Nils Labenz is relying on DirectOut’s Prodigy.MX audio matrix for a variety of duties within the tour’s audio workflow. Nils (Labbi) Labenz began working with the band in 2022 for their Hypa Hypa tour. As a monitor engineer, his main concerns were in-ear-monitoring and on-stage audio systems, but his role has steadily increased to include backing tracks and on-stage communications.
The Prodigy.MX provides the Dante Clock Master for the audio network and, when required, he shares the clock with OB trucks for events – as with the Rock am Ring Festival at the Nürburgring racetrack last year – using Prodigy.MX’s Madi card with SRC. The band use Prodigy.MX for redundancy for the playback system, with EARS (Enhanced Automatic Redundancy Switching) to ensure the switch is interruption-free.
The band were introduced to the Prodigy series when Jan Euler, Electric Callboy’s guitar tech, read about DirectOut and shared what he learnt with Pascal Schillo, the band’s guitarist, and producer of many of their videos. I turn, he got in touch with DirectOut and its German partner, Sphereo Distribution whose founder Jonas Gehrmann was happy to consult on how the devices could improve their redundancy and conversion solutions.
‘The Prodigy.MX is now the central component of our audio system,’ Labenz explains. ‘We use two Apple Mac Minis as backing track players and each is connected separately to a Dante card in the Prodigy. A third Dante card is used for the rest of our audio network. EARS automatically switches between the two Dante cards. We have redundant network switches at every position on the audio network. This means that all signals have redundancy at every point and can always continue to be used for live mixing and recording.’
The Electric Callboy sound team also use three DirectOut Andiamo units as analogue-to-digital convertors. The Dante Network cards convert signals for the guitars and IEMs onstage, with the third Andiamo unit forming part of the redundant system. Working alongside the Prodigy.MX, these devices offer a robust and stable solution for unforgiving touring schedules.
‘The Prodigy.MX runs super stable and has always delivered under any conditions,’ Labenz says. ‘Since installing it, we’ve performed more than 30 shows across Europe, North America, Australia and Japan, and it has run exactly as it should at every show. Despite tough touring conditions, there hasn’t been one error message or misbehaviour.’
Labenz also values the support offered by Sphereo and DirectOut, as demonstrated when Gehrmann assisted with their new set-up: ‘Jonas came to the Electric Callboy Studio and helped me set up the Prodigy for the first time,’ Labenz says. ‘He configured the system controls with me, and it all went very well. We had a relaxed audio-nerdy day with great technical discussions, and it helped a lot with operation and configuration.’
Labenz also uses Prodigy.MX wherever the band perform in TV studios, as with German late-night show TV Total XXL, a huge production filmed in the 18,500-seat Lanxess Arena, in Cologne.
‘The band performed live, as part of the show,’ Labenz confirms. ‘The TV setting is a whole different world for me, it was exciting,’ he concludes. ‘The Prodigy again acted as a bridge between us and the broadcast networks. It was good to have that reliability with us. The Prodigy is super robust, high-end equipment, perfect for rough every-day and touring use.’
More: www.directout.eu
