A pair of Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles accompanied singer-songwriter Alex Clare when he headlined the Future Stage at the recent UK V Festival. Provided by The Old Lion Touring Company, the consoles served duty at both FOH and monitors.

‘Alex’s performances fuse the weight and power of electronic records with live elements,’ says FOH engineer Harry Devenish. ‘A lot of that is due to the bass set-up – the bass guitars trigger a synth and a sub, creating a heavy, dynamic sound on stage.’

Devenish used one of the  Soundcraft Vi6 models several years ago: ‘I come from more of an analogue background and was slow to embrace digital, but I’ve always been comfortable with the Vi6,’ he says. ‘It has a very intuitive surface, with hands-on encoders and two layers, it’s very flexible. You can do a lot on the Vi that you can’t do on other digital desks.’

‘Vi Series consoles are so easy to work on,’ agrees Tim Boardman, Tour Manager for The Old Lion Touring Company. ‘I’m from the studio world but I can walk up to the Vi6 and make it work, which is saying something.’

The Old Lion Touring Company is also scheduled to provide a Vi3000 and Vi6 console for a ten-week tour with Clare in autumn, where Boardman and Devenish plan on using the Soundcraft Realtime Rack library of plug-ins from Universal Audio: ‘Bringing those effects that are predominantly used in studio settings to live performances makes a lot of sense,’ Boardman says.

‘Realtime Rack will be massive for us.’ Devenish adds. ‘The Vi6 is already a convenient console to work on and this will take the performance up another level.’