When DiGiCo introduced the SD9 – a complete, integrated system, which includes the mixing surface, a D-Rack digital stage interface and CAT 5E digital multicore, with the additional ability to simultaneously record 56 channels – we were immediately interested.

After reviewing many other digital mixing solutions we quickly found that the DiGiCo SD9 ticked all the boxes.

It’s functionality and feature’s gave us everything we needed for the continued pursuit of delivering the highest quality audio to our clients. The audio quality surpassed that of any other console we tested. The excellent sound quality of the SD9 was the main reason for us purchasing this desk. It’s ease of use let our engineers get straight to what they do best – mixing your show – rather than fighting through pages and menu’s. It’s small frame size and portability ensures that we do not need to increase prices to our customers in the form of extra staff or transport costs.

The excellent sound quality of the SD9 was the main reason for us purchasing this desk.

It is planned that the SD9 will primarily go out to our musical theatre events as it is perfectly suited to the job. The neatness and aesthetics of the board lets it fit into your theatre without making too much of a visual impact or taking out too many audience seats. The well thought out snapshot features also help with complicated shows. However, this will not be it’s sole purpose. The board will be attending many other events and we also look forward to taking it out on a rock ‘n’ roll tour early next year.

AMP Sound Systems would like to sincerely thank James Lawford of DiGiCo for taking the hours of phone calls to ensure any question we may have had were answered. We would also like to thank Michael, Sean and Gerry from Rea Sound (the Irish distributors for DiGiCo) for allowing us to take the SD9 out for a demo and ensuring our purchase went without a hiccup.

Will that Midas desk really make your band sound better? Surely that Klark Teknik graphic cant make a whole lot of difference? Pay €100,000 for a PA or €10,000?

€18.50

€109

All the above questions are questions that I have asked myself before – other than the band bit, so in my case my client’s band. I ain’t gonna say buy the most expensive gear you can find, and I ain’t gonna say “just buy cheap shit”. With a combination of skill and knowing “the right tool for the job”, this post will show you how to maximize the rewards of spending your hard earned cash!

I like examples to help illustrate my points – so lets base this example on a recent gig. A few months ago, I set up a full PA system in Conary Community Hall. Quite a big system for a small venue – 4 subs and 2 tops. I placed 3 wedges on the stage. I set up a desk for front of house mix. The gig was a stop on a headline tour with Clive Barnes and Luan Parle, so audio quality was paramount.

Click for a larger view of the setup

I had planned to use Shure SM58′s as the mics for all the vocals – Gav Ralston, Luan Parle and Clive Barnes. But all of my 58′s were out on hire, and the person got stuck in Galway so couldn’t deliver them back in time. I had to dig to the bottom of the mic drawer, and embarrassingly had to bring a bunch of Behringer mics to the gig. I had bought them ages ago for dry hire to singer/songwriters etc. Ideal for that type of gig, but I didn’t put much faith in them for a very high end show!

Anyway, soundcheck time came and went. Then gig time came and went. Then many comments like the following came:

Best sound on the tour

- Gav Ralston (Musician with Luan Parle)

You outdid yourself tonight. The sound was fantastic.

- Pat Nolan (Conary Community Hall)

Thanks to Eoin on Sound. It makes our live’s so much easier when the sound is good.

- Luan Parle

Surprisingly these €20 mics sounded amazing!

Gav and Luan giving it socks!

So what just happened here? If I was buying equipment specially for this gig, and had known how these cheap mics would sound, would there be any point in spending 6 times more money to get Shure mics? No is in fact the correct answer. A different mic may have sounded different, but probably not better. In this case, the cheap Behringer mic was the right tool for the job.

But, there are many other factors to consider. Factors about the gig that I purposely neglected to mention at the start. I had a very high quality PA system for front of house. Monitors were exceptional EV wedges. I was mixing on a Yamaha 01v digital mixing console. The room naturally had nice acoustics. I spend 3 times longer setting the EQ on the mics than I would have if they were SM58′s.

So where does this leave us in regard to the original questions:

Will that Midas desk really make your band sound better?

If your PA system is crap, then no desk will make it sound better. If your sound engineer is crap, no desk will make it better. If your desk is crap but all the rest of the equipment is amazing, and you have a good sound engineer behind that crap desk – then it is very possible to have a fantastic sounding gig.

Surely that Klark Teknik graphic cant make a whole lot of difference?

Again, if the engineer can’t set a Behringer graphic EQ correctly, what makes you think a more expensive EQ will sound better? However, a quality engineer with a quality graphic can lead to stunning results!

Pay €100,000 for a PA or €10,000?

Again, if any part of the signal chain is degraded by worse equipment or people, your €100,000 PA can sound like a €100 PA. And the flip side to that… Good equipment and a good engineer can make your €10,000 PA sound like a €100,000 PA!

I’m confused… Do I buy the cheap shit?

Well, I think the main bit of advice is to invest in knowledge rather than expensive equipment. Do not get expensive equipment as a compromise for someone who knows their stuff. No matter how much you spend, your sound will not magically get better.

If you can’t drive, buying a flashy new expensive car won’t make you pass your test! Same goes for audio equipment!

Gavin Ralston, Luan Parle & Clive Barnes

The video below shows the terrible effects of a bored sound engineer:

I replaced the audio on this video, as I have not yet got permission from the bands to use it, but the video should give you a quick overview of the buzz at the festival this year.

Monitors were D&B Max 12′s and the console was the Yamaha M7CL.

The rig consisted of a Funktion One PA for FoH, a M7CL-32 at mix, and EV sxA250′s for wedges.

View the video below to see the place from our perspective!

Enjoy! And don’t forget to click the Share button below if you know others who underestimate the work involved!!

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On the 5th of May 2010, AMP Sound Systems was booked to provide the PA system and crew for a show by the Dublin Glee Choir in The Bank, Newry. I knew this would be a great gig, so decided to engineer it myself. My day went like this:

It all starts the night before at the warehouse...

...cases are picked and loaded...

...the D&B Max12's will be used as monitors...

17:22 – All the equipment is pushed into the venue

17:46 - Speakers are positioned

17:52 - The backbone of the wiring is installed

18:21 - A rough layout of the stage is created

18:21 - Mic stands placed on stage

18:22 - Stage coming together

18:28 - Mix position is set up

18:33 - Things start to get patched in

18:50 - Studio Manager is connected...

...and the show is loaded

20:15 - Wiring on the stage is complete

20:15 - Connected. Now to start tidying up.

21:20 - Leads tidied up and taped where required

21:20 - The band arrives...

21:25 - ...and sort out their positions

21:29 - Souncheck starts

21:41 - Rough levels are set and a song is run

21:56 - Final adjustments before the doors are opened

22:22 - Mix position tidied

22:23 - And show is saved as a backup

22:23 - Then lots of muted channels as we wait...

23:13 - Time to check out the controls of those rather cool screens!!!

23:13 - And say hello to the DJ who was playing music dangerously loud

00:23 - Quick check that I am receiving signal on all channels

00:25 - And the place starts filling up

01:05 - The choir arrives on stage

02:17 - Starting to get loud now!

The last photo of the stage, as we were too busy packing up the gear to take photo's!

04:03 - Yes, that does say I will be home at 5:59 AM!

04:17 - On the A1 just about to leave the North of Ireland

04:18 - How depressing - the sat nav says turn left in 92.1 km!

04:41 - The fact that the sun is coming up just makes you realise that it is in fact the next day...

...so its Red Bull time!!!

05:47 - The sun is fully up now, so I just want to go to bed!

06:16 - Does this really need an explanation???

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A good friend of mine, Pat Nolan (Barry in Fair City) is joining a team of over 100 (motorcyclists, pillion passengers & support) to tackle the infamous / historic “mother of all roads” – ROUTE 66.

2,448 miles of unforgiving highway crossing Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

The gig was to help them raise funds for Temple Street Children’s University Hospital in Dublin. It was held in The Mill Theatre, Dundrum and it was a night of music, magic, comedy, acting, and much more! Phil Cauly was the MC, and welcomed guests such as Pat Fallon, Dana Davis, Brendan Burke, Dave Duffy and many more! Was a fantastic show.

Unfortunately though, the theatre only had an analogue mixing desk – the Allen & Heath GL2400. Nice desk, but an analogue desk! Although it is like riding a bike, I would obviously never forget how to mix on one of these bad boys. But I did miss the features. I missed having everything I could possibly need at my finger tips. I missed having a screen telling me exactly what is going on with my system. I missed having an EQ section that would do what I wanted it to do, rather than be confined to the bandwidth and frequencies that the EQ on the board had.

The show still sounded great, but it made me realize that investing so much in digital consoles was worth every penny.

If you made it along to the show, thank you very much for your support. However, if you could not make it – you can still support Pat by donating to this very good cause at http://www.mycharity.ie/event/patnolansevent/

Aladdin in Greystones Theatre

I had the amazing pleasure of doing the sound for St. Brigid’s School’s production of Mary Poppins and Aladdin! It ran for 2 nights in the Greystones Theatre. Usually these kids’ show are very samey, but this one blew me away!

The “Junior Choir” opened the night with their production of Mary Poppins, going through all the songs from Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! to A Spoonful of Sugar. They belted out the tunes and narrated the story before the interval when the “Senior Choir” got ready to perform Aladdin!

Not a normal Aladdin Script!

This was no normal Aladdin script though – this was a specially adapted version called Aladdin Jr. It was the funniest thing I have ever seen in my life! It generally followed the same story, but the language was a lot easier and it was much funnier – although the lead characters still had a huge amount of lines to learn! Keep in mind that these kids are all under 12!

The cast of Aladdin performing in Greystones Theatre

The Genie was hilarious – and somehow was always the one who ended up having to ad-lib to cover up silences! Aladdin and Jasmine both blew the audience away with their singing on “A Whole New World”. The narrators remembered a very large chunk of the script and kept us informed of all the developments in Aladdin’s love affair!

I just have to commend all the kids and teaching staff that were involved in that production! I would have watched it a few more times if I could have!

Now the fun bit!

Mix position which got surprisingly busy at times!

The 4 main characters wore Sennheiser mics, and took care of them very well! I was slightly worried about giving packs to kids this small, but they were impeccably behaved!

The rest of the cast were picked up by4 AKG mics across the front of the stage, as well as 3 more hanging above the stage.

The narrators used one of 3 SM58′s across the front of the stage. These were also used for some solo songs by cast members who were not individually mic’d.

The band consisted of keys, 2 guitars, bass, drum machine and a flute.

I was mixing on a Yamaha M7CL digital desk, and ended up using 28 channels in total!

I am a very big fan of the Yamaha M7CL for its ease of use. In fact I have lots of experience on most of the Yamaha digital range – from the 01V to the LS9 to the M7 and all the way up to the PM5D. You can go back and forward on any of those desks and have a very small learning curve. I love them…

But then along comes the DiGiCo SD8, and a lot of my favoritism for Yamaha boards gets sucked away. I have never mixed on a DiGiCo board, but from talking to other engineers it seems that you can take to it like a duck to water. The desk seems very well laid out, and is very very cheap for what you get. Its only £31,539 excluding the VAT. Thats only €44,600 including the VAT!

Take a peek at its overview video, and let me know what you think!