London, UK (January 4, 2013)—The UK female vocal group Stooshe recently chose to bring a pair of Harman’s Soundcraft Vi1 digital audio consoles for its recent tour, with engineer John Delf at FOH.
Delf said, during a recent soundcheck at London’s Scala. “It’s just perfect for this kind of tour as the footprint’s so small and transportation is so easy. We only have a small trailer on the back of a van, but the two Vi1s fit in easily.”
“What we realized quite early on was that the girls needed to have consistency,” said Nigel Thomas, the band monitor engineer for Stooshe. “When I came in and had the discussion with John [Delf] about the kit, it very soon became clear to both of us that the Vi1 was absolutely the perfect solution. I’ve come across several of them when working in theaters and have always liked the way they sound, and I’m particularly impressed by the user interface. I find that when I’m working on it, I don’t even look down, as everything is just there in the right place.”
For a number of the shows on the tour, including the Scala show, the pair used the venues’ in-house analogue multicores in combination with their Soundcraft Compact Stagebox, which Thomas said allowed both engineers to get exactly what they need. “Using the in-house multi means I can have a gain control,” he explained. “I’m then sending that up to John, and it’s then going into our digital [Compact] Stagebox at FOH, which is great because it allows John to basically put his desk wherever he wants to.”
At the Scala, Delf ran 28 channels at FOH, which left him enough space for any click tracks, cues, or last minute surprises. “We just found out that on tonight’s show there will be several guest vocalists,” Delf said. “Fortunately we can make room for these very easily as the Vi1 has plenty of channels; and of course, due to the quality of the console’s built-in effects, it’s easy to tweak compression, reverb and EQ really quickly to get any vocal sounding good right away.” Thomas created 11 stereo monitor mixes: six for the girls and the band members; one for the backline tech; and four for the wedges and sidefills.
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