American singer-songwriter Ben Rector has put out seven albums on his own indie label, Aptly Named Recordings, selling more than 450,000 albums and four million singles in nearly a decade of work – a large accomplishment for an indie artist. Jake Hartsfield, Rector’s FOH engineer and production manager, has brought a new weapon to his operation in the form of a pair of DiGiCo SD9 digital consoles.

Used for FOH and monitors, the SD9s give Rector and Hartsfield the power and performance to help stand out on the road, plus the economic effectiveness to stay out there profitably. ‘I’d read a lot about the DiGiCo consoles and many of the live mixes I’ve admired were mixed with them,’ says Hartsfield, who’s also mixed live shows for other successful indie artists such as Megan & Liz and Kidz Bop. ‘Spectrum Sound had SD9s available that were fully upgraded with the new Stealth Core 2 software and the Optocore fibre-optic loop that lets both consoles share the same SD Rack amp heads.’

Rector has been touring throughout 2106, and his schedule will see further headline amphitheatre and theatre dates in the autumn. Touring with the SD9 consoles, rented through Nashville’s Spectrum Sound, has offered Hartsfield and Brian Boggs, Rector’s monitor engineer, a new level of effectiveness and efficiency. Hartsfield has also found that the SD9 has virtually all of the EQ and dynamics processing onboard that he needs for live shows…

‘I put a bit of the Waves C6 multiband compressor plug-in on Ben’s voice for some polish,’ he says. ‘But everything else I need is right there on the console.’

The SD9’s power, connectivity, compact form factor and lightweight have helped boost the economics of touring for Rector and other indie artists” ‘We’re at that point right between a semi-truck and two trailers, so the compactness of the SD9 really helps there,’ Hartsfield says.

Yet, he emphasises, he doesn’t have to compromise any performance: ‘With the new Stealth Core 2 upgrade, I can have 96 channels,’ he says. ‘When we began rehearsals, we were right at 48 channels, so I have plenty of room for additional channels if I need them. I’m also very comfortable with the number of faders and worksurface.’

And the SD9 offers Hartsfield options that contribute greatly to Rector’s live show: Hartsfield connects the SD9’s I/O through Madi via the DiGiGrid MGB to a multitrack recorder, enabling him to record every show (Rector’s 2014 LP release was a live record), and playback from that routed back into both consoles via Madi enables him to do virtual monitor soundchecks at FOH and monitors.

‘The flexibility, the sound and the performance of the SD9 are all fantastic,’ he says. ‘It’s the best-sounding desk I’ve ever mixed on.’