Los Angeles, CA (October 28, 2016)—A DiGiCo SD9 console played a role in delivering authenticity to Showtime’s short-lived comedy-drama, Roadies.
The series, from creator Cameron Crowe and producer JJ Abrams, took viewers backstage on tour, following the lives and loves of its protagonists. Along the way, they met various featured artists, including the Head and the Heart, Halsey, Eddie Vedder, Reignwolf, Lindsey Buckingham and others, who performed every note live.
Bill Lanham was one of the show’s technical consultants whose own role morphed into that of its FOH engineer, monitor mixer and multitrack recording engineer, managing everything on a single console. Said Lanham, whose career began working stage backlines and who grew into live sound over time, “I’ve used a lot of consoles and I can tell you that DiGiCo is the one that lets you decide how you want to work.”
Lanham split the 40 stage microphones, sending copper to the production audio recordist and taking a MADI feed from the stage to a DiGiGrid MGB interface in the DiGiRack and console. From there, it went over Ethernet to a MacBook Pro running Apple Logic Pro multitrack recording software.
“The show does not use prerecorded tracks,” he said. “We usually pare it down to 32 tracks or less onstage and everyone is playing live. Having the SD9 gives me complete control over the audio coming from the stage, so I can mix it as though I was doing an actual FOH gig. But I can also send the band what they want to hear in the monitors and IEMs, and I can send submix stems to the production mixer. I can do all that easily because the SD9 lets me set the work surface the way I want it.”
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