CONCERT FOR ROCK BAND, SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA AND DIGICO QUARTET
Two SD7 consoles make their Italian debut at Verona Arena
Two DiGiCo SD7 consoles played a key role at a unique event recently staged in Verona’s famous Arena. Although renowned for summer seasons that attract opera fans from all over the world, the ancient Roman walls hosted a run of seven concerts by raunchy Italian rocker Luciano Ligabue, his band and a full symphony orchestra.
The consoles, two of the four delivered to rental firm Agorà, were taken on their first outing, along with two D5 Live desks, by the show’s audio contractor, Nuovo Service, and manned by two of the country’s best known sound engineers: Daniele Tramontani (FOH) and Stevan Martinovic (Monitors).
Out front, Tramontani, whose skills as a sound designer have been appreciated through the years on high profile events with concerts by Ennio Morricone, Turin’s Winter Olympics, the beatification of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a huge production of Aida at Seoul Olympic Stadium and several editions of the memorable Pavarotti & Friends charity shows, was back to his roots behind a console. After mixing the seventy-piece Verona Philharmonic Orchestra, he fed a pair of sub mixes (one of the strings, the other the rest of the instruments) to FOH engineer Alberto Butturini, who mixed them on a D5 Live with the 60 channels arriving from the artist and his band.
The same console combination was used on-stage for the sound fed to the orchestra members’ headphones and the band’s IEM systems, where Martinovic was assisted by Umberto Polidori.
Although setting up the desk for 150 channels, Tramontani didn’t need to use them all but, with numerous bug mics used to keep sound spill from the band to a minimum, eventually mixed approximately 110 and was very pleased with the results. “The SD7 is really fantastic, magnificent!,” says Tramontani. “I used 32 VCAs, 20 stereo groups and 20 stereo sends, so there were some big figures in there, but I didn’t use much of its incredible potential – such as the memories for example. However, seven concerts and the relative rehearsals were sufficient for me to realize that it’s definitely a great console. I also designed the sound rig for the shows and was particularly impressed with the console’s filters – it sounds great.”
Butturini, who has used D5 Live consoles for years on tours by Italian chart-toppers such as Claudio Baglioni, also managed to get an insight of the SD7 during rehearsals with the orchestra and commented, “It seems a really fantastic desk, offering great possibilities – it can handle an incredible number of channels and I can’t wait to take it out on the next important tour I do.”
Although having had access for a relatively limited time, Martinovic has already found several features he really appreciates on the SD7. “Having 12-channel bays is very useful - at Verona I had 12 VCAs in the centre bay, because I was mixing an orchestra but, with a normal band, I could use eight for the VCAs and thus have the other four to dedicate to other things. The desk auto-detects all the hardware connected – line or mic input cards, AES/EBU card, etc. A socket file is created when the desk interrogates the rack and stores what’s connected to it. The engineer can use a drop-down box to name the various things exactly as he wants and, when they come up on his routing panel, he knows exactly what’s connected where at a glance.
“Then, if you’ve got a hundred channels coming in from the stage, but the first four inputs are already allocated and routed – for example for video playback audio, etc., you just go to input five, set it as input one from stage, and with the ‘Ripple’ facility the other 99 follow on from there.
“The engine is so small that two can be fitted, so there’s full redundancy – not only of the DSP, but also the operating system, I/O hardware, etc. Martinovic enthused, “The engines can be used in various ways - for example at festivals, to handle stage A and stage B, toggling between the two, each connected to its own separate rack, with local set-up of splitters, etc.”
As well as being able to decide if he wants to use a compressor or gate pre or post EQ, another facility Martinovic foresees using regularly is the possibility of listening to specific outputs. “With other consoles, you can normally listen to Left and Right Master or, if you use PFL or Solo, any individual channel or Aux. With the SD7, via routing on the ‘no solo’ screen, I can set whatever I want as default. For example, one feed going to my cans and the other to a pair of wedges or a spectrum analyzer, thus keeping a specific signal - such as the solo artist’s – under close control.”
Wolfango DeAmicis who, along with his brother Vittorio, has led Agorà to its currently undisputed position as one of the country’s top rental firm, stresses that the SD7s were not bought to replace the D5s, but to integrate their stock of leading edge desks and explained, “We ordered six and have taken delivery of the first four – other two should be consigned in the new year. We were immediately struck by the SD7, an innovative, reliable product and really valid work tool. We’re holding training sessions for the engineers who’ll be using the consoles, and Daniele and Stevan - two of our regular collaborators - went up to DiGiCo’s HQ on several occasions for hands-on training. We give thanks to our excellent relationship with the company’s management, designers and staff, particularly regarding interaction on product features and development.”
Stefano Cantatori of Audio Link, Italy’s Parma-based DiGiCo distributor, confirmed the rapport: ”MD James Gordon came down with me to Agorà’s HQ when we consigned the consoles, and we’ve just upgraded the rental firm’s stock of seven D5s to Version 4. Although Agorà is our top client, there are several other rental firms here with D5s - one was used at this year’s Umbria Jazz festival in Perugia and state broadcaster RAI has several. Considering the dimensions of the Italian market, the D5 was extremely successful here and, as everywhere else, there’s a great deal of interest in the SD7.”
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