London, UK (November 4, 2026)—Mercury Prize-winning artist Raye is equally at ease in a vast stadium or an intimate jazz club, a challenge met by her live sound engineers with consoles that are flexible, reliable and offer a lightning-quick workflow.
Matthias Simmons, Raye’s front-of-house engineer, uses a DiGiCo Quantum326 while monitor engineer Joe Standen switches between a Quantum7, Q338 or Q225 depending on the size of the show, all supplied by Solotech.
“I haven’t been with her the whole time, I’ve popped in and out,” Simmons says, “but I started doing front-of-house in 2023 and before that I did monitors. There has always been a really natural, grassroots feel to Raye’s music; whether she’s playing for 20,000 people in an arena or a pared-back jazz set, there is a genre-defying quality that stays pure. We can go from huge brass and string sections one night to just a piano, bass, drums and trumpet the next, and it keeps it very interesting.”
He continues, “The size format is just right for me. It’s got everything I need, plenty of processing and, even on the bigger shows, I’ve still got probably about 10 spare inputs and a few buses free. The Q326 has everything on hand, exactly where I need it. At the venue, I can generally load a show file and quickly adjust it. I also do a fair amount of my desk programming at home; the software is great and I can whip up changes super-fast. It’s all really robust.”
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Standen joined Raye’s team as monitor engineer in 2023. For him, DiGiCo provides the consistency he needs in ever-changing performance environments. He is using two SD-Racks, shared with Simmons at FOH, an SD-MiNi Rack for monitor-outboard and a D-Rack for FOH outboard. The FOH and monitor consoles are linked via an Optocore loop. Being able to scale this setup is key because, in addition to the core band of drums, bass guitar and keys, there can be backing vocals, percussion and, for the arena shows, string and brass sections, plus guest vocalists.
