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Tag: Clair Global

  • L-Acoustics L1 and CS1 Debut in the Americas on Bruno Mars’ The Romantic Tour

    L-Acoustics L1 and CS1 Debut in the Americas on Bruno Mars’ The Romantic Tour

    Bruno Mars’ The Romantic Tour ranks among the largest stadium runs of the year. Launched April 10 in Las Vegas, it began as a 39-date stadium tour, and demand has since pushed the count to 90 nights across North America, Europe, and Japan, with the trek set to conclude January 28, 2027 in Tokyo. Along the way, The Romantic Tour set the record for the highest first-day ticket sales ever for promoter Live Nation in North America, filling stadiums with tens of thousands of fans a night. Every one of those nights runs on the L-Acoustics L1 system, in its first tour deployment in the Americas.

    Clair Global Brings L-Acoustics L1 to the Americas Ahead of Launch
    L1 is the flagship of the L-Acoustics L Series and the most advanced expression to date of the company’s patented Progressive Ultra-Dense Line Source (PULS) technology, engineered to deliver the power, bandwidth and pattern control that stadium productions demand.

    Responsibility for putting that pre-launch system in the air night after night fell to Clair Global, the sound company behind the tour and an L-Acoustics L1 pilot partner. L-Acoustics unveiled L1, L1D, and CS1 in May at its Keynote 2026 event at the Hollywood Bowl, yet the system had already been touring with Bruno Mars since April. Clair Global is one of a small group of partners entrusted with the system before its commercial release, a decision that reflects deep confidence on both sides.

    A stadium tour of this scale demands enormous output and even coverage. The L1 enclosures are large, but relative to the large-format systems they stand in for, a shorter L1 hang delivers comparable performance with fewer boxes and less weight flown overhead. The integrated cardioid design of L1 and CS1 keeps low-frequency energy on the audience and off the stage, giving Bruno Mars a cleaner space to perform in.

    “It’s the first large-format cardioid system design from L-Acoustics, both the subwoofer and top box fully natively cardioid, and it’s been helping massively clean up stadium sound, which is always challenging,” says The Romantic Tour systems engineer Wayne Hall. “It just makes it sound more like a smaller, intimate venue, like a theater or a small arena, really, which has been quite amazing, considering the places we’re playing. It’s quite an accomplishment.”

    CS1 Extends Low-Frequency Control from the Front Row to the Far Field
    For FOH engineer Sean “Sully” Sullivan, mixing the show night after night for stadium-sized audiences, the difference is immediate. “This system makes a stadium sound a lot smaller than it is,” he says. “Controlling the low end with a full cardioid PA pretty much eliminates the usual stuff rolling around these giant spaces. Once you add the finest mids and highs I’ve ever heard, the room just disappears.”

    The gains hold up where stadium sound is hardest to control. “I found the new CS1 to be extremely impressive in the far field, which is traditionally where you’d lose low frequency at the top of the stadiums,” Hall explains. “And we’re getting a seamless transition from the ground subs to the flown subs. As a result, we’re able to bring that ‘ground-floor experience’ up there that people are paying a premium for downstairs, so it feels like you’re giving even more back with this new product.”

    That control marks an evolution in how the team deploys low end. “We’d been using KS28 in a cardioid configuration,” says Sullivan, “but having a box like CS1 that you don’t have to decide or configure just makes it easier and simpler. And this entire system has horsepower for days. Nothing comes close to the capabilities of L1 and CS1.”

    L1 and Autofilter Deliver One Consistent Sound Across the Bowl
    Coverage consistency is central to how the L1 system performs in a stadium. Working within L-Acoustics Soundvision, the new-generation Autofilter algorithm shapes the low-frequency behavior of each L1 array, holding tonal balance steady from the front rows to the rear bowl.

    “The boxes are quite large, but the way they’re designed and built means you can walk the room and hear a consistent effect,” Hall describes. “You just hear the whole array as one single source, so you no longer get interactions between different boxes. It’s a smoother coverage front-to-back and you don’t really notice any tonal shift or change, along with the use of L-Acoustics’ Autofilter, which they’ve considerably improved to use with this new product. Overall, it’s just a much, much better sonic experience in terms of sound quality and SPL.”

    L1, L1D, and CS1: A System Built for Every Seat in the House
    For The Romantic Tour, the main arrays comprise five L-Acoustics L1 over one L1D per side, backed by 10 CS1 flown subs per side. Matching side-fill arrays of five L1 over one L1D per side are joined by 270°-fill hangs of 12 K2 per side. Ground subs comprise 30 KS28 across the stage face in 10 cardioid-mode groups of three. Front-fills are 10 A10, each topping a sub cluster for spatialized front-fill, with four A15 serving as ground-level near out-fills: the inner two vertically oriented, the outer two horizontally oriented. Delays are four arrays of 12 K2 each, addressing the rear-bowl seats. LA7.16 amplified controllers drive the L1, L1D, CS1, and K2 arrays, while LA12X drive the ground subs, front-fills and near out-fills.

    For engineers who joined the production on short notice, the system proved quick to master. “I’d never seen this PA until we hit Vegas for the first show, yet I managed to work it out in pretty minimal time,” says Hall. “That’s a pretty good ‘kudos’ to them as a manufacturer, because if, without any training, you can make it work, that’s pretty good-going.” Sullivan finds the same familiarity: “L1 is very K1-like as far as capabilities and sonics; it has the familiar sound, and the workflow is very similar to what we were used to with K1 and K2 in the past.”

    Source Intelligence Keeps Bruno’s Voice Clear Above the Band
    On this tour, Sullivan is also working with Source Intelligence, the L-Acoustics real-time vocal enhancement platform introduced alongside L1 and CS1. Running on the L-ISA Processor II, it uses machine learning to separate the lead vocal from crowd noise, instrument bleed, PA spill, and room reflections, leaving a clean vocal for the engineer to work with.

    “Bruno’s usually pretty far from the microphone, typically about six to eight inches away, and then there’s times where he’s two feet from the microphone, which can be a real challenge with loud side-fills and a big band,” Sullivan says. “Source Intelligence is really helping deal with keeping it clean and allowing me to do his compression as I like, as well as effects and dynamics. If the snare drum’s loud and bleeding into the vocal, it’s kind of hard to lay into it, but Source Intelligence takes care of that. In fact, you can’t even tell there’s any noise up there at all. Source Intelligence is so good at cleaning the junk out and leaving the vocal untouched. It’s all Bruno. And that’s what everyone came to hear.”

    The Romantic Tour’s European dates began June 18 in Paris and continue through July 28 in London. The next North American leg runs from August 21 in East Rutherford, New Jersey through October 21 in Vancouver, with additional shows in September and October across multiple cities. Special guest Anderson.Paak also performs as DJ Pee.Wee at every concert on the global tour.

  • The Phil Collins Story Relies on DiGiCo and KLANG More Than One More Night

    The Phil Collins Story Relies on DiGiCo and KLANG More Than One More Night

    It’s a live show. It’s a film. It’s all of the above and then some. The Phil Collins Story, a docu-concert celebrating the life, career, and music of Academy Award, Grammy, and Golden Globe-winning performer and songwriter Phil Collins, debuted February 3 at the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse, New York and then embarked on a 50-city North American tour. Chronicling Collins’ chart-topping time from Genesis to his celebrated solo career, The Phil Collins Story brings the artist’s distinctive music to life in a way that resonates with audiences visually and emotionally, featuring state-of-the-art audio, dynamic projections, and intricate lighting.

    That audio for the show is delivered through a DiGiCo Quantum225 console, provided by Clair Global, managing both front-of-house and monitor duties, with the latter critically utilizing a DiGiCo DMI-KLANG card for signal distribution and control, paired with iPads running KLANG:app for the musicians on stage.

    “It’s not really a film or just a concert—it’s a multimedia experience with live music,” explains Theodore “Ted” Woolsey, who did the sound design and mixes the live sound for the project, working with A2 Ethan Ginsburg-Margo. “It’s the story of Phil’s life and it goes through a lot of the stories and all the hits, including with Genesis, with live musicians onstage. It’s pretty spectacular.”

    The show is true to Collins’ unique sonic signatures, including the Sennheiser 421 microphones that captured his iconic heavily-gated tom-tom fills on songs like “In the Air Tonight.” Woolsey also points out that the show is live in more ways than one: while a click track is used for the musicians, the entire production is, like much of Collins’ own career, very analog: sound, lighting, and video all operate independently of each other, relying on their respective managing engineers to keep the show together.

    “The show starts with the music director running a Logic session with a click track off of his laptop next to his keyboard,” he explains. “That goes to the six musicians in the band through the KLANG:app on their iPads, and it also cues the lighting and video operators, who have their own KLANG mix as well as the click. When they hear the click, they start the show manually.”

    The DiGiCo Quantum225 console is the hub for all of this, paired with some choice, authentically-vintage Phil Collins outboard gear like Bricasti reverbs and the Yamaha SPX2000 multi-effects processor, as well as some more modern Waves plugins.

    “The Q225 lets me manage everything easily from a single surface,” he says. “And I designed the setup so that there’s no need for a monitor engineer—I’m using KLANG so that the musicians can mix themselves. The intuitive KLANG:app interface makes personal mixing easy for them, while the immersive mix engine helps them find the right balance much more quickly.”

    “It’s really cool how I can split up audio in so many different places through so many different ‘languages,’ like through MADI, Cat5, and over fiber,” Woolsey adds. “In this case, the whole system is one Cat5 line with the DMI-KLANG card out of the console into an access point that drives all the iPads. Typically, if you were going to split up monitors, you’d have to have a split snake where you would drive all the inputs in a secondary way into another rack that goes and distributes into the in-ears. But with the DMI-KLANG, it’s all shared off a single SD-Rack, so there’s no split. It’s all digital through the one Cat5 line. That’s it, that’s the whole system—there’s no split snake rack, no networking rack. It’s just shared off the same I/O and it’s all going through this access point into the KLANG.” The simplicity of the signal path, he adds, contributes greatly to reducing the potential for any failure.

    In addition, the entire show is programmed with snapshots so that during the initial rehearsals each of the musicians dialed in all of their individual mix levels per song. “Then I saved that data with the snapshots, so when I hit the next song, it changes their mix automatically to the mix that they dialed in for each song,” he says. “The combination of the Quantum and the KLANG is like having a monitor engineer that knows the whole show, but each musician is handling it themselves. And I like giving control to the musicians; they can easily make their own monitor tweaks through KLANG:app, focus on their playing, and be fully immersed in the show. And that also lets me focus on the live show and my front-of-house mix. Really, it’s the best way this show could be done.”

  • Engineers Choose DiGiCo Quantum338 and Quantum5 for Laufey World Tour

    Engineers Choose DiGiCo Quantum338 and Quantum5 for Laufey World Tour

    Laufey is an Icelandic singer-songwriter with a genre-defying style that has won critical acclaim, resulting in a host of awards. The A Matter of Time tour accompanies the album of the same name and began in 2025, concluding in August 2026 with dates globally.  At front of house, Matt Grabe is using a DiGiCo Quantum338, while monitor engineer, Sebastian Mut, began the tour with a Quantum338, but expanded into a Quantum5 for later dates. All consoles are supplied by Sound Image, a Clair Global brand.

    Grabe started engineering and mixing in studios. Twelve years later, a good friend, front-of-house engineer Shane Haase, took him out on tour as system engineer for Alabama Shakes. He worked for a variety of artists over the next seven years, but it was not until another friend asked him to fill in mixing that he took the plunge and returned to a console position. He has been working with Laufey since 2024 and DiGiCo has always been his manufacturer of choice, allowing him to mix fast and instinctively.

    “Having a reliable desk that can be sourced anywhere in the world is non-negotiable,” he explains. “I started specifying Quantum consoles due to the clarity of the screens. I have minimal vision in one eye and a transplant in the other. From day one, my top-tier Sound Image representative Kim Sawaya made sure that one was always available. I didn’t start using Quantum features until recently, but now MSE and Spice Rack are in use on every file.”

    Mut began his training in houses of worship before moving into touring. He started with Laufey in 2024 and has been using DiGiCo consoles throughout his career. He has consistently chosen DiGiCo for the past three years, thanks to the power of the consoles, global availability, and DiGiCo support.

    “We swapped to the Q5 for Laufey’s Coachella performance,” he recalls. “The Q338 and Q5 are fantastic monitor consoles, the layout of both surfaces makes getting anything done very quick and efficient! The most useful features for me have absolutely been the powerful Snapshot and automation functionality, as well as the Spice Rack, specifically Naga 6. With all the international travel on this tour, being able to keep everything in a slim package that can be replicated in a new region quickly has been important for us.”

    Global touring comes with many complications, but for Mut and Grabe, ensuring they have the tools that make their jobs possible is not one of them. Depending on the type of show, the engineers will either take their own equipment or pick it up locally. As Grabe continues, having DiGiCo consoles on the rider means that they are never disappointed by a lack of availability.

    “We travel with the control package, desks, I/O, mics, and instrument DIs,” he continues. “On occasion, we fly into a duplicate of that system. It’s daunting to recreate as we are near fully loaded on four SD-Racks, an SD-MiNi Rack, and over 50 channels of RF. The set has a string quartet, a jazz trio on the B-Stage, and even a moving Steinway grand piano. Our brilliant technicians make that all possible. For solo dates, it’s very simple to convert the show file to whatever SD or Quantum desk is provided locally.”

    Laufey’s style is pure and deliberate, with Grabe using a very light touch in terms of processing. He prefers to rely on the faders to ride dynamics, rather than heavy gating or compression, ensuring every detail is heard with natural clarity. At the monitor position, Mut has a similar methodology, using the Fourier transform.engine as his dedicated choice for plugins, as required. For him, the reliability guaranteed by Fourier’s rock-solid sandboxing gives him an appreciated additional layer of security.

    “The Fourier has been a great piece of hardware; it’s very consistent and has been without any major issues,” he notes. “It’s a relief to know that if anything were to happen with a plugin mid show, it wouldn’t stop everything running on the server. The console integration is a big feature for me. Having Snapshot recall between the transform.engine and the console without any extra hardware or programming is really useful. I’ve also been very impressed with how much processing power I have available to me with just one server.”

    For both engineers, the DiGiCo Quantum ecosystem offers a complete package of reliability, power, and support that means their workflow runs smoothly in any corner of the globe. As they both conclude, on a tour of this scale, that is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

    “We’ve chosen DiGiCo due to logistics, and the power of the desk,” Mut says. “Being able to replicate this package anywhere in the world, quickly, and without much fuss, is a huge selling point for us. And with the powerful Snapshot and automation functionality we can nimbly do anything we’re asked to deliver the best product for our artist.”

    “There are scenarios where you jump on a red-eye flight to mix a new band with nothing but a festival changeover,” Grabe finishes. “Equipped with SD Convert and a punt file, any DiGiCo will do. That doesn’t just make my life easier, it makes the task possible.”

  • DiGiCo Quantum338 Helps Tyler Childers’ Snipe Hunt Tour Capture the Right Stage Mixes

    DiGiCo Quantum338 Helps Tyler Childers’ Snipe Hunt Tour Capture the Right Stage Mixes

    Tyler Childers’ seventh and latest studio record, Snipe Hunter, is an adventurously sprawling collection of tunes that spans a range of genres, from Appalachian folk and gospel music to psychedelia and experimental rock. To properly cover a lot of musical ground on his current Snipe Hunt Tour, which kicked off in Dallas on April 23, the Kentucky-born-and-raised singer-songwriter is backed up by his raucous seven-piece band, The Food Stamps, which generates a joyous explosion of musical creativity on stage each night. To best keep all of the singers and musicians in sync with their own performances as well as each other, Sound Image, a Clair Global brand, is carrying a DiGiCo Quantum338 as the tour’s monitor console.

    Cory Benson has been the artist’s monitor engineer for three and a half years now, first hitting the road with Childers on 2023’s Send in the Hounds Tour. “As that tour wound down, I was taking inventory of the gear and reviewing what worked and what could be improved upon based on Tyler and the band’s needs,” he shares. “I remember seeing a lot of positive videos and writeups on the DiGiCo Quantum338 and requested one to work with before the next tour prep began. What first drew me to the Quantum was a tossup between the superficial and the real-world applications. I’m a sucker for aesthetics and the Q338 is such a stunning console—the layout, the colors, the size, and those fantastic screens.”

    “On the more practical side, the Nodal Processing was a game-changer,” he continues. “As a monitor engineer, you can find yourself cluttering up your fader banks with duplicated channels for specific sends. Being able to handle the individual sends from one channel allows me to keep my layouts simple and clean. Besides the fader bank cleanliness that Nodal Processing provides me, the safety net of my show lives in the macros. I’ve mixed on other desks, but nobody does macros better than DiGiCo. The layout and functionality are top notch on the Q338.”

    Benson describes his Snipe Hunt Tour monitoring setup as “pretty simple,” with the DiGiCo desk controlling two SD-Racks loaded with 32-bit mic pres and analog output cards. He’s also utilizing two DiGiGrid MGBs to pull MADI into his recording computer.

    From his typical position at stage left, Benson is supplying eight stereo IEM mixes for the band, along with five stereo IEM mixes for the backline techs, one stereo IEM VIP mix, and up to three stereo IEM mixes for guest sit-ins, potentially bringing the total to 17 on a busy day. “I also send a backup stereo mix to a hardwired pack for our drummer, Rod, and a feedback wedge for our guitarist, James, which is only used for a few of his solos since all our amps are upstage of the risers.”

    This being Benson’s third official outing on a Quantum338 has only further cemented his appreciation for DiGiCo’s Quantum platform. “Man, trying not to sound too much like a DiGiCo fanboy is tough!” he laughs. “The Mustard and Spice Rack processing is yet another powerful set of tools that help keep me in the box. True Solo is a tool that you don’t think you’ll need until you have it, and then you wonder how you’ll ever work without it. The footprint of the Q338 is also great and can easily squeeze into some of the tightest of underplays that we sometimes find ourselves in. And the rugged, road-worthy build has definitely been tested in the past couple of tours: from rough ferry crossings across the UK/EU, to dusty outdoor festivals, to gale-force winds and rain in the Pacific Northwest, to a sweltering prehistoric show in a small grassy patch next to the highway—our most recent underplay at Dinosaur World in Kentucky—this console has never failed to perform.”

    Largely eschewing audio plugins and external processing, Benson prefers to keep everything onboard as much as possible. “I utilize the Naga 6 on Tyler’s vocal channel to reign in the wild dynamics of his performance before sending it through the DYN Blue Classic compressor, which is filtered to catch any aggressive peaks in his upper-mids,” he says. “I’m also running DYN Blue Classics on my band buses with a higher threshold to just glue everything together and catch any runaway transients. I use the Mustard gates for my toms because they feel a little more musical and organic than the SD’s. And with DiGiCo’s latest V22 software update, I’m now utilizing the new Mustard Levelling Amp, The Silver One, on upright bass—this thing is killer!”

    “In my opinion, this desk works so well for this band because of its sonic transparency,” he adds. “These artists work so hard to craft the tones and sounds they want, so the last thing I want to do is affect it. I want the artists to be confident that what they’re hearing in their IEMs is an accurate representation of what their instruments are doing on stage.”

    The confirmation that Benson has received back from the performers has confirmed that he’s taking the right approach—with the right console. “They’ve all, at one time or another, said positive things. But the comment that immediately comes to mind was from Jesse, one of our guitarists/multi-instrumentalists—they call him ‘The Professor’ because he actually is a music professor back in his home state of Kentucky. During our first rehearsal after the switch to the Q338, he turned to me a few minutes in, smiling, and said that he noticed a major positive difference in the clarity and fidelity compared to our previous console. All the guys on stage have great ears and don’t tend to sugarcoat anything, so when they comment positively on the audio, I know it’s genuine.”

    The Snipe Hunt Tour stops at a variety of iconic venues—including Chicago’s historic Wrigley Field and Pennsylvania’s Hersheypark Stadium—before wrapping up on October 3 at Portland’s Moda Center.

  • Lorde’s Ultrasound Tour Brings Intimate Presence to Massive Arenas with L-Acoustics L-ISA

    Lorde’s Ultrasound Tour Brings Intimate Presence to Massive Arenas with L-Acoustics L-ISA

    In 2018, Lorde made history by becoming the first artist to take out a full arena deployment of L-Acoustics L-ISA, utilizing K2 arrays, on her acclaimed Melodrama tour. Following her Solar Power tour four years later, the New Zealand-based artist has more recently returned to arenas with the Ultrasound World Tour—supporting her fourth studio album, Virgin—with a fresh complement of L-Acoustics L Series loudspeakers supplied by Clair Global, which also deployed an L-ISA Hyperreal Sound system on the campaign’s North American dates.

    FOH engineer Philip J Harvey, an L-Acoustics Artisan of Sound, has worked with Lorde on all of her tours since the beginning in 2014. “With Virgin, the sonics are more of a hard-driving electronic vision; very dynamic, but still retain an intimacy and vulnerability. This approach was incorporated into Ultrasound. Much of the material from her past albums was reimagined and revamped to fit this tour’s aesthetic. With L-ISA, we wanted this driving force to wash over the audience like a spacious tidal wave at high points and then collapse down into soft, more mono, raw vocal moments. This dynamic contrast really makes a powerful impact on the audience.”

    That dynamic interplay between scale and intimacy is made possible in part by the compact form factor of L Series itself. The shorter hangs of L Series, with each L2 or L2D element covering the same contour as four conventional K2 elements in a form factor 46% smaller and 40% lighter, meant the rigging above the stage stayed visually clean, leaving the full impact of that striking set design unmarred, and giving every audience member an unobstructed view of the artist and the performance.

    The Ultrasound World Tour has taken Lorde to sold-out arenas across North America, Europe, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Mexico. Crucially, the L-ISA Hyperreal Sound deployment on the North American leg proved that scale and intimacy need not be in conflict; even in the biggest rooms, every audience member could feel Lorde’s presence as though she were performing for them alone. She returns to close out her final festival dates later in August and September into October.

    Lorde’s North American L-ISA Deployment
    For the world tour’s North American leg, Clair Global’s standard arena deployment featured an L-Acoustics Scene system comprising five arrays of three L2 over one L2D, paired with two identical L Series out-fill arrays, plus left and right hangs of 12 Kara II for 220°-fill. Sixteen KS28 subs flown in two central hangs of eight delivered the show’s low-end reinforcement, complemented by four KS21 mounted into the stage face as front-fill subs.

    A dozen L-Acoustics A10 Wide enclosures spread out across the front of the stage lip supplied spatial front-fill. Two more A10 were placed in front of the stage thrust, while one A10 Focus and one A10 Wide atop two KS21 to the far left and right of the stage provided ground out-fill coverage. At NYC’s Madison Square Garden show, the main system was supplemented by three L2 flown in an LCR arrangement over the rear section of the main floor to compensate for the venue’s large central video display.

    For power, 24 L-Acoustics LA7.16 amplified controllers drove the L Series enclosures, while 18 LA12X handled everything else. Two L-ISA Processor II units, one used as a redundant backup, facilitated the tour’s object-based mix, with processing and control achieved via two P1 processors, feeding the system over Milan-AVB, and LA Network Manager.

    According to Chris Demonbreun, who served as the North American leg’s systems engineer, the initial Soundvision model started with a general design from Josh Lloyd at Britannia Row Productions, a Clair Global brand. “I made a few modifications to make the system fit within the other elements of the show and relied heavily on Soundvision’s Autosolvers,” Demonbreun shares. “They’re really handy tools when deploying L Series, and L-Acoustics has done a strong job with the algorithms they use, especially with the Autofilters. Every venue requires minor tweaks to the system, but we were able to deploy a consistent sounding system every night, and the Soundvision predictions did a great job of matching the real-world results. Philip is, of course, a skilled mix engineer and it was great being able to deliver his mix to every single person that bought a ticket for the show, no matter where their seat was.”

    A Fully Spatialized Mix From Front to Back
    For those audience members up front, the tour’s use of spatialized front-fills ensured that they also enjoyed a panoramic audio experience. “The coverage on the floor in the spatialized zone that L-ISA provides was exceptional,” says Harvey, who has also worked with Keane, My Bloody Valentine, Mumford & Sons, and The White Stripes, among many others over his 30-years-plus career. “Chris made the daily critical listening arena trek to make sure everywhere in the house sounded consistent, and the spatialized front-fills really drew the audience in the front rows into the immersive experience.”

    Demonbreun agrees: “With all of the great tools L-Acoustics provides, L-ISA performs very well in arena settings, and I could make sure that Ella’s performance got delivered to everyone in the audience: 75 percent were in the L-ISA immersive zone, while the rest were hearing fill systems,” he says. “The spatialization from the front-fills is a really cool thing. The L-ISA Processor took all the information from the main Scene and, using L-ISA’s Sound Spaces feature, rendered a tailored immersive environment specifically for the front-fill zone, delivering a well-defined, spatially-coherent experience to those closest to the stage, and it worked really well. One other advantage we had was no stage volume to interfere with the front-fills.”

    A Successful Maiden Voyage with L-Acoustics L Series
    Although Harvey was intimately familiar with L-ISA, Lorde’s Ultrasound World Tour marks his first opportunity to tour with L-Acoustics L Series loudspeakers. “I am so impressed with the clarity and detail of L2 and L2D,” he says. “To me, they sound like giant studio monitors, and their directionality really cleans up much of the sound that used to roll around behind the speakers in the low to low-mid frequencies in previous systems. L-ISA is incredibly powerful for the ability to take advantage of hyper-dynamics between a mono, soft, intimate setting in one moment, then crescendoing into a massive wide-panned, loud explosion in the next—and L Series delivered this perfectly with precision and clarity.”

    From a systems engineering and deployment perspective, L2 and L2D are equally popular with Demonbreun. “I previously used an L Series system for delay hangs on Lana Del Rey’s 2025 UK stadium tour and they’re such impressive boxes. They travel really well and are very quick to deploy and then strike at the end of the night. We utilized the L-Acoustics Clamp 1000 for deploying the main Scene system from truss. The Clamp 1000 is a game-changer—it’s a panning rigging system rated to 1,000 kg that allows you to rotate the entire flown array from the ground, which dramatically reduces the number of motors needed and cuts load-in time. It also means you can fine-tune the azimuth angle of each hang at ground level rather than working at height, which is critical for L-ISA, where consistent array orientation from venue to venue is essential to the immersive image.”

    L-ISA: Connecting Artists and Audiences
    “We employed the Follow-Me tracking system with Ella’s vocal to really take advantage of L-ISA’s immersive panorama,” Harvey says. “As she walked around the stage, her voice in the speakers followed her physical presence.”

    Harvey notes that he particularly appreciates the inherent nature of the L-ISA system being able to translate the mix as intended across the entire floor and into the arena seats, “versus a left-right system, which only offers the full mix to audience members situated directly down the middle ribbon of the arena floor,” he says. “My other standout aspect of L-ISA is the center-hung, end-fire KS28 sub configuration, which was flown above the center L2 array. The low end was clear, clean, and pronounced in a way that’s rare in a large system. The fact that all the sub frequencies were emanating from the same single vertical point means there was no comb filtering from multiple low-end sources in different positions in the room where their interactions end up not aligning in phase.”

    From initially setting the bar high on Lorde’s Melodrama tour by incorporating L-ISA, the addition of L2 on the Ultrasound tour has further refined the audience’s experience—and there has been no shortage of compliments on the mix and sound quality from everyone in Lorde’s camp from the top down. “On social media, the reviews from audience members have all been very positive,” Harvey adds. “By and large, it seems they know something is different in the sound design of our show. It definitely reinforces the choices we’ve all made to go with L-Acoustics L Series and L-ISA.”

  • Charlie Puth Takes to the Road with Clever DiGiCo Quantum5 Consoles

    Charlie Puth Takes to the Road with Clever DiGiCo Quantum5 Consoles

    Chart-topper and multi-award-winner Charlie Puth’s Whatever’s Clever World Tour is just that; it will take the singer-songwriter-producer on one of his largest live productions to date, with headline dates across North America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific, starting in April in San Diego and closing (so far) in Perth, Australia in November, in support of his fourth studio album. Onstage, it’s a tight group: besides the artist there are drums, bass, guitars, keyboards, and three backup vocalists. For production manager Mike Schaeffer, who is also mixing front of house, and Josh Cruz at monitors, their instruments are equally important: a pair of DiGiCo Quantum5 consoles, supplied for the tour by Clair Global.

    “The Quantum console has been on the rider for Charlie since 2018,” says Schaeffer. “It’s always been my preferential console. I’ve always chosen DiGiCo, and so the console became a requirement based on anything we were doing.”

    Both consoles are on a single Optocore network, sharing it with an SD-Rack and an SD-MiNi Rack, as well as an Orange Box bidirectional audio-format converter that connects between any two of the compatible DiGiCo Multichannel Interface (DMI) cards. In this case, some of the outboard used on the tour includes various Waves plug-ins, as well as a Rupert Neve Designs Shelford channel strip that combines transformer-gain microphone preamp, an inductor-based equalizer (EQ), and a diode-bridge compressor that Schaeffer applies to Puth’s vocals. Otherwise, the Quantum5 desks are pretty much the center of all routing as well as processing.

    “The Quantum5 is a very comfortable desk to move around on,” he says. “My workflow is pretty straightforward. I do a lot of bus processing. I like the fact that you can send a bus to a bus, which a lot of consoles just didn’t do for a while. I use a Rupert Neve Design master-bus processor and a master-bus transformer. No matter what configuration of outboard and onboard processing I need, the Quantum5 lets me organize it however it best suits my workflow needs.”

    Josh Cruz joined Puth crew in 2022, as the band was just formulating itself around the core that would be on the current tour. “DiGiCo has also been my preference for a while. I’m doing a lot more than just your basic channel input to aux output,” he explains. “So having the flexibility of the three banks of faders, a powerful macro section, and the amount of inputs and outputs the Q5 offers were super helpful.”

    Cruz describes his goal when monitor mixing as preserving the feel for the musician. “I tend to take a very basic approach to monitor mixing: a lot of my EQs are pretty flat, not a ton of compression going on. The band members are very particular about their sounds and it’s not my place to unnecessarily manipulate any of that. For example, our guitar player uses an Axe-FX and he shapes a lot of his sounds on the front end. He literally says, ‘Do not put any filtering, EQ, or compression on it.’ It’s an XLR straight to the desk and I simply send it right back to him at the level he wants.”

    “We’re a little over the 56 I/O an SD-Rack offers in terms of physical inputs coming from the stage, but in total terms of what’s on my desk, I’m almost maxed out: there are a few double-patched inputs, effects returns, and there’s a number of playback channels, which come in over MADI through the Orange Box. We also have the Sound Devices Astral wireless ARX16, running two of them in mirror mode, and that provides all of our vocal inputs. Plus, I have a number of utility channels that I’m using to allow for some tech control. It expands well beyond the normal use case of an input channel being something coming from stage.”

    Fortunately, the Quantum5 is more than up to the task, designed, as Cruz puts it, “to remove the guardrails around what it means when you look at an input channel, an aux, a group, or a matrix,” he says. “I can essentially take any of those things and turn them into anything that I want and route them anywhere. And because of that, it has allowed me to push the limits as to what each of those things can do.”

    Another capability both engineers celebrate about DiGiCo’s Quantum technology is its ability to manage control from numerous sources via massive I/O capacity, Optocore fiber loops, DMI cards (Dante, MADI, Waves), and extensive software integration. “One thing that I really appreciate is that the DiGiCo consoles have the ability to have external control from a number of different sources,” says Cruz. “Being able to incorporate the console into a network is pretty common in a lot of consoles these days, but with the Quantum5, specifically, I’m able to control it from multiple sources at monitors.” He cites the software Companion by Bitfocus using a custom module called DiGiPanion by fellow DiGiCo user David Lim, which allows operators to manage tasks such as triggering complex macros and interfacing with external platforms such as DAW systems, with a single button press. “The flexibility of what DiGiCo has made available through their OSC control has been super helpful for me,” he says. “Capabilities like that, and the ability to let us work the way we want to, is why DiGiCo is always the top choice.”

  • Coheed and Cohesion and Cambria: The Prog-Rock Legends Pack a Punch on North American Summer Tour

    Coheed and Cohesion and Cambria: The Prog-Rock Legends Pack a Punch on North American Summer Tour

    Powerhouse progressive rock group Coheed and Cambria launched an amphitheater tour last summer co-billed with iconic emo-pop band Taking Back Sunday. The 25-date trek across the United States and Canada featured a dazzling arrangement of lasers and lights, a giant inflatable sunglasses-adorned skull, and support from a robust Cohesion audio system.

    Long revered by fans for their intricate arrangements, complex narratives, and electrifying performances, Coheed and Cambria treated fans to plenty of hits old and new. The set featured singles from their latest album, including “Goodbye, Sunshine” and “Blind Side Sonny” alongside beloved classics such as “A Favor House Atlantic,” “Blood Red Summer,” and “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3” plus a boisterous encore of The Killers’ “Mr. Brightside.”

    “They’re a powerful band that melts faces off,” said FOH Engineer and Production Manager Scott “Shreddy” Edwards. “They’re all super-talented guys, and I want that to be heard. When they decided to go bigger and carry their PA, Cohesion fit right in. I always want the best representation for how this band should sound.”

    Clair Global deployed the PA, which featured Cohesion CO10 mains and side hangs. The tour’s typical configuration used fourteen CO10 on each main hang, though occasionally the line length reduced to twelve or extended to sixteen, such as for the show at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage in August. Side hangs, where applicable, used 10 CO10 per hang.

    “We’ve gotten great throw on this main array. Today, at 300 feet, it was nice and clear,” said System Engineer Steve Hupkowicz before a show at Philadelphia’s Highmark Skyline Stage at the Mann. “The power and versatility of the CO10 are really nice. I tend to leave alone the low-mids. I get all the headroom I need. I’m a ‘less is more’ person, so I hang fewer than most. People tell me how many they put up in a room, and I think, ‘I did that with 2–4 fewer in the same room.’”

    “The CO10 immediately surprised me,” said Edwards, who added that he appreciated the tonality and throw of the speaker. “I once did a show with [Cohesion CO12] on the mains and CO10 on the sides, and I thought it was good. Then I had one show where we just flew CO10, and I said, ‘This is awesome.’ The next tour, I took out all CO10 and loved it. The CO10 is exactly what I’m looking for. They’re punchy. They’re smooth.”

    The subwoofers for the summer tour were originally intended to be flown, but venue architecture and staging often required reconsideration of that design. Hupkowicz and Edwards agreed that moving the subs on the ground would aid in consistency night to night, so six Cohesion CP218 II+ were placed on either side of the stage in cardioid configuration.

    Six to eight Cohesion CF28 were spaced across the stage every eight feet for seamless coverage of the fans in the front. Hupkowicz, as the SE on the 2025 tours of Mary J. Blige and Keyshia Cole, had previously used the fill speakers. “I usually push them hard, and they’re a great-sounding, powerful box that I don’t need to hack much at all. They rip.”

    Joining Coheed and Cambria were indie rockers Foxing, on their final run of touring, and fellow suburban New York icons Taking Back Sunday. Dan Stork, the FOH Engineer for Taking Back Sunday, shared his thoughts on the Cohesion PA before the Philadelphia show: “I’m trying for a rock-forward mix, but ultimately, people also want to sing along, so I have to get [frontman] Adam [Lazarra] above the rest of the mix. I’ve found that I’ve been able to push a lot of top end without it getting hissy or noisy, which we really need because Adam moves so much. It sounded very clear and precise. The PA has been punchy in the low end for the drums and bass, and then it has a lot of bite in the mids without any ‘honk.’”

    The tour was a celebration for Coheed and Cambria on three fronts: the thirtieth anniversary since the group’s founding in 1995; the twentieth anniversary of their celebrated Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV, Vol. I: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness, their best-selling album; and the March release of their eleventh studio album, Vaxis—Act III: The Father of Make Believe.

    “I’ve been happy with all the shows. It’s not just me saying it—we get 20, 30 people a night saying how awesome it sounds,” summarized Edwards, who has worked with Coheed and Cambria since 2008. “You know, the band goes off what people tell them, so it’s been great. They’re comfortable with us, and we’re comfortable with them. We’ve had the same crew for quite a while, and we know each other very well. We must be doing something right!”

    The summer tour was the second of Coheed’s three consecutive tours in 2025. “The Infinite Arc” tour, which preceded in May, was a five-week run across the East Coast, Midwest, and American South accompanied by heavy-metal icons Mastodon. In October, they ventured across Europe on the “Welcome to Forever” tour, with Haken joining them for the final five dates in the United Kingdom.

    Coheed and Cambria returns to touring later this month, with global stops in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K. to close out the year.

  • DiGiCo Quantum852 at RODEOHOUSTON® Assures Fans Heard Every Hoofbeat and Drumbeat

    DiGiCo Quantum852 at RODEOHOUSTON® Assures Fans Heard Every Hoofbeat and Drumbeat

    Originally designed as an opportunity for farmers and ranchers to showcase their work, the RODEOHOUSTON® Super Series—aka Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo™—has grown from a small regional exhibition founded in 1932 into one of the largest cultural and economic events in the United States. Since 2003, it has been staged at NRG Stadium, where it was held this year from March 2-22, along with a slew of concerts by Tim McGraw, Lainey Wilson, Kelly Clarkson, Lizzo, Luke Bryan, Chris Stapleton, Dwight Yoakam, Shaboozey, and many others.

    Befitting its current place in sports media, RODEOHOUSTON had top technology in place this year to assure visitors—more than 2.7 million of them over the course of three weeks—had great sound to go with the dramatic visuals. That included DiGiCo’s flagship Quantum852 mixing console, deployed there for the first time via Houston-based LD Systems, a Clair Global brand, which used the desk to mix the largest rodeo event in the world. The console was accompanied by a pair of DiGiCo SD-Racks and an Orange Box in the main patch room, plus four SD-Mini Racks distributed throughout the stadium.

    “This is a high-profile event that operates around the clock for 21 days straight,” observes LD Systems President Rob McKinley, who also served as the Project Manager for the event. “Every technical element is mission-critical, with minimal time for recovery if any issues arise. Therefore, my role is to support the team with the tools and resources they need to perform flawlessly, and if there is an issue, that there is rock-solid backup to quickly recover. DiGiCo has provided a great tool in the Quantum product to elevate our engineers’ performance, thereby creating a greater fan experience. DiGiCo provided excellent support, with Julian Gates onsite for several days to ensure the Quantum852 performed, which it did with flying colors. Everyone was pleased with the outcome and we look forward to many more great events with DiGiCo.”

    As sports and entertainment continue to converge, tools like the Quantum852 become critical for being able to address the entire spectrum of audio needs. “My role sits somewhere between a live sports mix and a show mix,” explains LD Systems A1 for the event Rafael Rosales. “I’m managing everything the audience hears during the rodeo: announcers, effects, playback, interviews… and making sure it all translates clearly across a very large space.”

    Scale—of the venue, the event, and the technology needed to present it—is the single biggest challenge. “The scale is a big part of it, but it’s really the combination of scale and speed,” Rosales says. “You’re working with a very large PA, long throw distances, and a high noise floor from the

    crowd and the arena itself, while also dealing with open microphones, especially announcers in front of the PA. So gain-before-feedback, bleed control, and intelligibility are constant priorities. At the same time, the show moves very quickly. You can go from an intense event straight into an interview, then into playback, and back into competition within seconds. Each of those elements behaves very differently sonically.

    “But, beyond that, the goal is immersion,” he continues. “I’m using a wide network of microphones—ambient mics around the arena, effects mics on gates and chutes, chuck wagons, lavaliers on contestants and contractors, and so on. The intention is that no matter where someone is seated it feels like they’re right there on the dirt, hearing the details of the action as it happens.”

    This is why Rosales says the Quantum852 is the platform he chose to manage this complex production on, because it offers him the processing depth, visibility, and reliability he needs for this scale and scope of show. “On the input side, I rely heavily on Mustard Processing—dynamic EQ, multiband compression, and the Mustard Source Expander—to stabilize each channel before it even reaches my mix,” he explains, referring to DiGiCo’s onboard tube/EQ/dynamics processing modeled from highly sought-after analog units. “With over 100 inputs active I can’t physically ride every fader all the time, so I build that control into the channels themselves. That way, even if I’m not touching a source at a given moment, it’s still behaving in a controlled and predictable way. Playback feeds are a good example of that. They all come in with different tonal signatures and dynamics, so I use multiband compression to smooth those differences so everything sits in a consistent sonic space. I also extend that approach to my busses, using dynamic EQ and multiband compression, to keep groups balanced as multiple elements stack up. Another thing I really like is the amount of metering and data the console gives me. I have a lot of visual feedback in front of me at all times—levels, dynamics, processing activity—which helps me make fast decisions in a very dynamic environment.”

    Anyone familiar with rodeo arts knows the significance of eight seconds—the minimum time a rider has to stay on a bull to qualify. In a sport measured in seconds, the ability to match the audio workflow pace to that of the events is critical. Again, says Rosales, this is why he chose the Quantum852.

    “In this environment speed and access are everything,” he says. “I’m working with over 120 inputs, so I rely heavily on macros and spill sets to organize the console around how the show actually unfolds. I can instantly jump to specific zones, whether it’s a section of the arena, announcers, or playback, and only see what I need in that moment. That means I’m not searching for channels; I’m going directly to where the action is happening. Physically, the desk also supports that workflow: having a large number of faders available, depending on layout, lets me keep key inputs and groups under my hands without constantly banking.

    “The dual-engine design is also critical: it gives me seamless redundancy that is essential when you’re effectively running a live, broadcast-style mix for that many people. It really comes down to preparation and speed. I use processing to control my inputs before they hit the mix, rely on visual metering to stay informed, and use the workflow tools to react instantly. That’s what allows me to deliver a mix that feels both clear and immersive for the entire stadium.”

    Thomas Ruffner, LD Systems Audio Ops Manager and a Systems Engineer on the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo project, also had high praise for the DiGiCo elements of the show’s production, but he additionally made observations about how critical the support was from the company and its related teams. “It’s worth highlighting the absolutely amazing support we receive from DiGiCo and its US distributor, Group One,” he says. “Whether we’re adopting a new platform like the Q852, or just working through scenarios with existing DiGiCo equipment, the customer service they provide is truly second to none. The team at Group One is really fantastic at making sure we have the tools, knowledge, and real-time support necessary for success with a powerful platform like Q852 at the helm of a complex show like RODEOHOUSTON. Vendor support is a major deciding factor when choosing which tools we use, and the DiGiCo and Group One teams never disappoint!”

  • WWE Tag Teams with Cohesion for Consistent, Clear Audio at Pro Wrestling’s Top Events

    WWE Tag Teams with Cohesion for Consistent, Clear Audio at Pro Wrestling’s Top Events

    World Wrestling Entertainment, better known as WWE, captivates millions of ultra-dedicated fans across its hundreds of tour stops and on multiple top-rated television broadcasts. Cohesion, the audio system chosen by WWE, provides consistent coverage, clarity, and output for each venue while satisfying broadcast needs for one of the globe’s most anticipated events each week.

    Total viewership for WWE Raw and Smackdown, the world’s most-renowned and highest-rated wrestling programs, tracks in the millions for each program, according to Sports Illustrated. Annual global total attendance, according to estimates from Pollstar and other sources, figures at nearly two million spectators.

    For the better part of two decades, Clair Global System Engineer Dan Laveglia has designed and deployed hundreds of system configurations for this long-time client. Together with Lance Vardis, WWE FOH mixer, they have driven the audio experienced at thousands of WWE shows.

    “The sound system is a huge part of the show. Together with state-of-the-art lighting, video and pyro, it’s like a rock concert without the band,” says Vardis. “We’ve chosen Cohesion for its ability to provide a clear and accurate reproduction of our audio program. It is especially effective for the vocals. Cohesion makes it easy to mix, and the audience can hear every word.”

    Laveglia recalls an early experience with the Cohesion CO12 line array loudspeaker: “We were in a stadium somewhere and I recall turning it up after the setup was complete. The coherence of the vocal reproduction was tremendous. It was mind boggling that a PA system could sound like that.”

    Laveglia and Vardis, along with expertise from broadcast A1 Marc Lanciaux, agreed that a Cohesion CO8 system met the WWE’s touring needs. “We knew it was a perfect fit,” explains Vardis. “The system was very compact and easy to fly, and the Cohesion engineering team developed some specialized products and accessories to accommodate this unique deployment. Part of our agreement with WWE was that we could fit in the same truck space we were using. The CO8 enclosures ticked all the boxes—and it sounded great.”

    Laveglia and Vardis have two distinct approaches for WWE’s stadium events. In open air venues, a square superstructure with a roof covers the ring, from which hang eight arrays of sixteen Cohesion CO10 alongside twenty-four Cohesion CP218 II+ subs flown six-high in each corner. The CO10 enclosures cover from 50–75’ to the edges of the stadium, and fill arrays of six-high CO8 ensure coverage for the area closest to the ring.

    The second option uses the same CO10 array configuration but from a circle truss over the ring and flown 80–100’ high. In this configuration, they wrap the CO10 arrays hard at the bottom and eliminate the fill arrays. On the circular truss, the mains are split by eight arrays of CP218s.

    “Lance and I really like this one,” says Laveglia. “The coherence of the loudspeakers themselves, coupled with this cohesive arrangement of arrays, makes a very powerful system.”

    “Different venues dictate different system configurations for us,” Vardis adds. “We always work with the show’s designer to deploy the system so that it doesn’t interfere with other production elements. For us, we always want to ensure coverage and clarity. Cohesion is so flexible that we have been able to develop approaches that just work.”

    “The audio system, like other line arrays, is broken into various zones so that we can tailor the response to the different seating sections,” explains Laveglia. “Closer seats have a subtle high frequency roll off to keep the sound from being too harsh in the near fill areas. We typically add some high frequencies to the upper portions of the array to assist in covering the far seats, but Lance and I agree that Cohesion generally sounds the best when you do the least to it!”

    The system also provides nuanced and effective low end, characteristics crucial to the pageantry of WWE matches not lost on Vardis:

    “When the wrestlers come out for a match, with lasers and pyro going off, and the entrance music playing loud, it’s a big, big deal! The crowd is on their feet, screaming and carrying on. The CP218 II+ subs are fantastic at providing the impact we need to complete the picture. They are very powerful and musical at the same time. We have ‘thump mics’ under the ring to pick up the sounds of the mat, so when the wrestlers get thrown down, you really hear that thump. It adds that beef as it bellows through the room.”

    WWE continues to grow a diverse and robust audience, known as the “WWE Universe,” with increasing streaming options. As such, the company has redoubled its efforts to create a memorable and visceral impact on the audience, particularly with live audio at the major events on the calendar.

    “Previously we kept the audio levels moderate in the venue to help the guys in the truck to manage their mixes, but that is all changing,” summarized Vardis. “[WWE] has pressed us to make it louder, so we’re pushing the system harder all the time. I have asked Dan for a CO12 system to use for our upcoming WrestleMania show in Las Vegas. We want to give [WWE] what they are looking for, so we’re starting with 128 CO12 and 32 subs. I’m really looking forward to mixing on that!”

  • Engineers Choose Two DiGiCo Quantum338 for Halsey’s Back to Badlands World Tour

    Engineers Choose Two DiGiCo Quantum338 for Halsey’s Back to Badlands World Tour

    Front-of-house engineer James Butera has been touring with Halsey since 2023, and Schyler Blackman, monitor engineer, has been with them for almost a year. Both engineers are enjoying the DiGiCo Quantum338, supplied by Clair Global for this high-energy world tour.

    Halsey is an American singer-songwriter, originally from New Jersey, and her global appeal is underlined by over 31 billion streams, five chart topping studio albums, and 29 singles. Halsey’s latest sold-out world tour, Back to Badlands, was a celebration of her album Badlands, which debuted in 2015. The tour started last October, visiting the USA, Canada, Mexico, and Europe, ending in Australia in February 2026, with many extra dates being added due to huge demand.

    The switch to DiGiCo Quantum338 happened in 2023, after a catastrophic failure of Butera’s previous console. The desk failed at the top of his very first show with Halsey and, coupled with compatibility issues, he made the choice to jump to a different manufacturer.  His main concerns were stability and reliability, plus proven compatibility with the existing Dante playback system. It was an added bonus of choosing DiGiCo that he was also able to streamline the audio rig with DMI-Dante cards, reducing rack space, too.

    “DiGiCo’s I/O flexibility and stability were the two big selling points,” Butera recalls. “We cut the amount of rack space and gear in half when we switched to DiGiCo, and we no longer started festival set changes with, ‘hold on, I need to power cycle’, which was great! Global availability is also excellent. Every festival you walk into, it’s a DiGiCo, which is reassuring. There are a lot of administrative details that make DiGiCo an easy choice for a global act.”

    Worldwide large-scale touring is a dream career for any live sound engineer, and knowing you have the choice of the world’s best equipment at your fingertips makes it just that a bit better. For Butera, standing behind a DiGiCo console is not unlike standing in front of a high-performance vehicle, as it smooths the edges of the audio experience and makes life a little less complicated in the process.

    “I think all the major players have great-sounding consoles; it’s like Porsche versus Ferrari. They’re both beautiful cars and they both go fast,” Butera continues.  “At some point, it becomes a personal preference, but there are definitely some shortcomings in terms of flexibility if you leave the DiGiCo ecosystem. There is so much flexibility, all the network options on hand are great. Built-in Dante on the Quantum112 looks really good. DiGiCo is just really hard to beat.”

    It’s not just the front-of-house experience that is frictionless, communication between consoles is also improved with a DiGiCo ecosystem. Blackman can easily and quickly share data from the monitor position with the console send/receive functionality, via the Optocore loop. This function is available to any consoles on the loop and removes the need for additional multicore runs by easily assigning any send as a latency-free port, instantly visible to other consoles via the network.

    With the stresses of global touring, it is unlikely that any piece of equipment will make it back to the warehouse completely unscathed. If the worst should happen, using DiGiCo means that there is a whole world of support available, whatever time zone the tour is in.

    “I’ve been flitting in and out with DiGiCo since 2015, depending on whether I get to choose, obviously,” Blackman explains. “It’s the flexibility, stability, and reliability that really stand out. No matter where you’re at in the world, whether it’s Topeka, Kansas, or London, you can find a DiGiCo somewhere close. I was on a gig this summer in Seattle and one of the cards in our stage rack developed a fault. We discovered it at power-up, and within 20 minutes, we had another one onsite from a local audio vendor. That’s not always the case with all manufacturers. Just being able to source parts on the rare occasion where something does go wrong is amazing.”

    Mixing with a DiGiCo console is more than great sound and an ergonomic console layout. The DiGiCo family is just that: a global network of people who really understand the pressures of audio engineering, and whether that is happening in a stadium, surrounded by fans, a theater, or a broadcast studio, DiGiCo equipment and people have got you covered. That feeling is very comforting when dealing with as many moving parts as Blackman and Butera are, and as they conclude, DiGiCo support goes above and beyond, giving them the confidence to do the same.

    “I like having the I/O flexibility, too; DiGiCo is friendly with everything,” Blackman finishes. “I’m using a LiveBox, a bunch of outboard gear, and Dante. Having one system that is compatible with all of the different players in the game is really, really nice.”

    “The support is pretty impressive; we were doing a show in Minneapolis and needed some help,” Butera ends. “Matt Larson, Group One Vice President was traveling home at just the right moment and he jumped off the plane to come straight to us. The commitment is amazing, the DiGiCo team just can’t get enough!”