Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

Live Sound

On the Road with Jovanotti

A mainstay of Italian pop, Jovanotti tours with SSL on an unconventional tour.

New York, NY (November 4, 2019)—Italian singer-songwriter and rapper Lorenzo Cherubini—better known as Jovanotti—first hit it big in the 1980s and he’s still at it to this day. Currently on tour, his production carries three SSL Live L550 consoles. The arrangement of the production to have a live band that plays Jovanotti hits in between a live DJ set, creating a musical flow where there is no distinction between, as FOH engineer Pino Pischetola puts it, ‘the two souls of the show’.

Pischetola, who has worked with Jovanotti in the studio since 2005 and in a live capacity since 2013, explained, “To achieve this, I’m sending the band mix to Jovanotti’s DJ mixer so he can mix between the live band and the records; I receive his mix and balance it with the vocals.” As a result, he mixes from the stage instead of the middle of the crowd.

Clair Global Nets First SSL L550 Live Desks in US

Pischetola added that the artist takes a great interest in the technical aspects of the show, and the solutions used: “There are also situations where I control the band totally: by using the SSL’s Stems and multiple masters, I can route the band where I want instantly. Also, using Stems for FX send returns is a big advantage compared to using the standard aux route; one channel is enough, and using Query, I can easily send the tracks that I want to.”

Jovanotti’s monitor engineer, Massimo Manunza, has been working with the performer since 2007, and is pleased with the desks. “It’s such a full sound and very analogue, which reflects the original recordings,” he said. “The coherence of the SSL is extremely impressive.”

Working with three SSL Live L550 consoles (one at FOH, one for monitor mixing, and one as a mirrored/spare desk) and a SuperAnalogue MADI I/O, the FOH and monitor L550s are connected via a passive splitter.

“I use 4 ML32/32 stageboxes connected with a Blacklight II Concentrator and connected to the mixer with fiber, where I use all the inputs and about 90 bus outputs,” Manunza explains. “The FOH L550 has three ML32/32 stageboxes, with a Blacklight II concentrator and fibre. To manage this large amount of I/O, I need to configure the layout in a really intuitive way to avoid wasting time searching for resources, so I created layouts for musicians or types of instruments: drum, percussion, bass, guitars, keyboards, tracks, and so on. The two bays fader tiles at the bottom are for the inputs, and the inclined fader tiles are for the outputs. With my mixer, I also manage communications between the various directories. There are 128 inputs, 30 mono aux sends and 30 stereo aux sends including effects and services, in addition to 14 VCAs, one PFL and one AFL.”

Want more information like this? Subscribe to our newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox.

Pischetola has found the desk to be useful for the production’s unstructured approach, and noted, “For this tour, I wanted to have an analog approach because there is no fixed setlist, and there is also a lot of improvisation; this is the reason I’m doing front of house mixing from the stage, where I have more control of everything that’s happening. I’m not even using scenes or automation. When I switch on the mixer, it’s set up how I left it in the last show, and I go from there. There is a lot of real-time mixing, which is a lot of fun.”

Solid State Logic • www.solidstatelogic.com

Close