Kevin first started looking for a new control desk in 2006. "I was introduced to the guys from DiGiCo at Frankfurt," he says. "We already had digital mixing consoles, but were looking for something bigger, as many shows we were doing were over the 100 channel mark."
After looking at a number of different products, Kevin decided that DiGiCo made the most sense. "I had talked to colleagues in the industry from around the world, and I could also tell what the larger tours were using by reading reports in the industry magazines," he recalls. "DiGiCo definitely seemed to be the flavour of the month and when they explained the operating system to me, I could see that it was far more advanced than what other companies had to offer, so we went with the D5."
Kevin then quickly added another D5 and three DiGiRacks to his inventory. "We also invested in a number of the card options such as Aviom for their personal monitoring system, Ethersound to allow us to digitally connect to our Nexo system, and a number of AES/EBU input and output cards. We also purchased the Optocore fibre system which really allowed the desks to come into a league of their own.
Since then, Kevin has continued to invest in DiGiCo. "In our game you never know what you will be doing tomorrow," he says.
"Since we acquired the SD10 it has been involved with Mariah Carey (a standby desk until their touring DiGiCos arrived), it has also been out on two or three shows including monitor duty for Chris Brown. The desks are working hard. "We recently did a Mother's Day event at the Johannesburg zoo. It's a gig that I like doing and one that we've done for years. This year I was going to mix it on the D5, but then we decided to put the SD10 at FOH and an S21 on monitors."
This would have been Kevin's first experience of mixing on an SD10, but he had to hand it over to Richard Mitchell, a resident engineer for one of the performing artists, who arrived on site unannounced.
"My session with getting acquainted with the SD10 didn't happened. I actually ended up showing Richard how to work the desk and he mixed the whole day!" he laughs. "Without ever having mixed on the desk, I was able to instruct people on how to use it. It really illustrates how user-friendly DiGiCo desks are and how consistent they are right through the range."
(Jim Evans)
