‘It’s very, very easy to mix music on this console and it works in a very straightforward manner,’ says Francis, who is approaching his eighth year of using DiGiCo consoles almost exclusively. ‘It’s got everything you’d ever need onboard. For the last two years I’ve been using a Waves SoundGrid server, but prior to that I didn’t–I just used the console and nothing else.’
Although he favours DiGiCo’s SD10, Francis switched to the SD7 – supplied by VER Tour Sound for The Honeymoon Tour – for the show’s 90-input channel count.
‘It’s a blend of track and live inputs, with the emphasis on live inputs,’ he says, including multiple keyboards, guitar, bass, drums and a small string section. ‘The only thing that is obviously track is her background vocals. She did all of the backgrounds on the record, so the only way to make it sound right was to continue that.’
The SD7’s snapshot capabilities are proving to be invaluable: ‘It’s pop, so the levels are pretty drastically different from song to song. On a lot of the songs there’s an intro section, then into the regular song, so I use at least one snapshot to set up each song. A couple of the songs have more than one,’ he says.
The DiGiCo’s multiband dynamic equalisers and compressors are also essential to the mix, says Francis, who groups drums, bass, keyboards and other instruments separately: ‘I take all of those groups into yet another group of all the music and create a separate path that’s all of the vocals. I treat the two paths completely separately, then I combine them into the Meyer Sound Leo/Lyon PA system.
‘I use a lot of layers of compression. I use the Waves C6 on Ari’s vocal, then go into a group with the onboard three-band compressor and take her vocal and the background vocals and compress them together there. It sounds so polished. My daughter came to a recent show and I put her in the front row. She was showing me videos she had made and the sound was crystal clear.
‘I use the multiband dynamic EQs everywhere,’ he continues. ‘Instead of doing drastic low-mid cuts I’ll just use compression. The information is still there, it’s just compressed so that it fits better. There’s a lot less contouring and a lot thicker sound. I think that’s why you hear things on the DiGiCo that you don’t hear on some of the other desks. There’s just more there.’
Francis and Hoffmann share one large rack – the ‘execution rack’ has two DiGiCo SD-Racks, a Madi converter and word clock distribution to all of the external digital devices. ‘It’s also got all of the wireless receivers and ear transmitters, all hardwired,’ says Francis. ‘The stage rolls at about two o’clock, the monitor console rolls under the stage and the rack rolls in. The cabling is pre-laid when they build the stage so we’re literally checking things ten minutes after the stage rolls.’
Tracks from two Pro Tools computers pass via Antelope Audio interfaces into a D.O.Tec Madi switcher that selects Machine A or B and sends it to an Optocore converter. ‘That shows up like a stage rack,’ Francis says. ‘Of everything we tried, that was sonically the best way to do it, and it gave both FOH and monitors the greatest versatility.’ The system also enables time code distribution for the show’s video, lighting and laser automation.
He adds, ‘We don’t use a splitter, which is a huge sonic advantage. By eliminating a splitter you keep your impedances as pure as possible. By having the SD-Rack at the stage you cut your copper link to 100 feet or less on every input. Then the sonic advantage of the console really itself takes it to a whole new level.’
