Los Angeles, CA (October 8, 2019)—Capitalizing on a Grammy win for for Best Rap Performance with his single “Bubblin” this year, Anderson .Paak has been on the road playing clubs and festivals to acclaim. Along for the ride is an audio set provided by Eighth Day Sound (Highland Heights, OH), overseen by FOH engineer Nevin J. Thomas and monitor man Jon Lammi.
a DiGiCo SD7 console for front of house, operated by Nevin J. Thomas, and an SD5 for monitors piloted by Jon Lammi, with both desks supplied by Eighth Day Sound.
Nevin Thomas has been working with Anderson .Paak for close to four years now, but has known him since he and .Paak and several members of .Paak’s band, The Free Nationals, were in school together at Musicians Institute in Hollywood. Thomas’s DiGiCo SD7 is working with an SD-Rack fitted with 32-bit Mic Pre-Amps as well as a MiNi-Rack, which makes managing .Paak’s 64-plus input stage plot much easier.
“I’m using the MiNi-Rack for a few more I/O, and it also gives me a bit more control over the routing,” he explains. “You can really hear the difference in the 32-bit mic pre’s; I noticed that right away. They really sound great.”
In addition to using onboard effects as well as outboard gear and Waves plug-ins when needed, Thomas has also been making use of virtual soundcheck. “That’s probably the single biggest tool I use regularly,” he says. “It gives me a great starting point without having to have the band onstage, and it lets me really drill down and hear the room, the environment they’re going to be playing in, so I can dial it in perfectly. I can’t imagine doing what we’ve been able to do without the SD7.”
Lammi, who’s been with the artist for three years, is using a DiGiCo SD5 console and an SD-Rack, also with 32-bit cards. “The workflow is perfect for me—for instance, I can have up to 16 stereo mixes and six channels of wireless microphones for our setup,” he explains. “I use macros a lot to update snapshots and the way everything is located in the center of the console means it’s easy to find everything I need instantly.”
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