| JUNE 2008 | |
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DIGICO D5 NO.1 IN HEAVEN FOR SPARKS MONITORING |
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21 albums in 21 days? Performed in order, on consecutive days and each and every track played (that is around 250 tracks)? What sort of weird and wacky, heart attack inducing concept is that? But, for those who remember brothers Ron and Russell Mael’s - aka Sparks – quirky and original style from their formation in the 1970s, maybe it doesn’t come as quite such a surprise that this was how they chose to celebrate the launch of their 21 st album. Running from mid May and culminating on the possibly fitting date of Friday 13 th June, this was a mammoth task on every level. Not only for the brothers, whose propensity for mixing musical genres (glam pop, power pop, electronic dance music, mainstream pop) has won them a long and successful career and a large cult following, but also for the crew working alongside them. And, with each new day bringing a completely new show, the simplicity and flexibility of the DiGiCo D5 digital mixing console meant that it became one of monitor engineer Simon Higgs’s best friends. Higgs deployed a D5-56EX, regularly utilizing 46 channels for his in ear monitoring system, which comprised three sets of radio in ears and six hard wired units, with the ability to add more packs as required. The first 20 dates of the run were in the intimate club atmosphere of London’s Islington Academy, but a static location certainly didn’t make Higgs’s life any simpler. “There were many, many changes throughout the run,” he says. “We had different drummers over the period, the bass player and guitar player swapped and we had brass and string sections coming in for just one show. To cope with this, I assigned different channels and patched the 48 lines into the desk wherever I needed them for any particular show, or a particular bit of the show.” Higgs has made excellent use of the console’s comprehensive set of functions, using Snapshots on every song and every internal effect available. “Every channel was automated, apart from my ambient mics, which I did manually between songs,” he explains. “It’s the fist time that I’ve done this sort of thing. Normally, I would use floor monitors and I would just do channel mutes. But it’s been very useful to have that function. “I use all six internal effects,” he continues. “I have three for the singer - a reverb, vocal thickener and the studio delay - a reverb for the backing vocalists and two for the drum kits – an ambient one and a gated 80s snare drum, so we have a choice of two, depending on what year the album came from.” And, as if all of that wasn’t enough of a challenge, for the final night the show moved to Shepherds Bush Empire and Sparks threw in a little extra challenge. “The first half of the set debuted the new album and the rest was what the fans voted for online,” says Higgs. “I saw the set list the night before, so I didn’t have much of a chance to think about what that was going to involve until we got to the venue.” So, apart from those he must surely have had of relief that the challenge was successfully completed and all concerned were happy with the result, what were Higgs’s thoughts at the end of the run, particularly regarding his choice of console? “With the amount of changes that went on, I couldn’t have done the show without it,” he smiles. “I like the D5, and I certainly wouldn’t use any other digital console.” Image Caption: Simon Higgs
Press Contacts: Sarah James at Gasoline Media |
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