Reynolds, who has been piloting the band's house mix for the past four years, was delighted to find a Vi6 already in both the FOH and monitor positions when the band started their UK leg proper with a four-night stint at Koko in London, as the experienced sound engineer had already worked with the desk in his native Chicago - at Randy Flaws' Windy City Sound and Lighting.
"Randy got hold of the first couple of Vi6's for touring use in the States around a year ago, and when I'm back home I do work for that company. So I had the opportunity to get a feel for the Vi6 before the FX cards came along. I got the multi-track out, which I used as my source and the sound compared favourably with any other digital source I had heard."
Reynolds has been making good use of the snapshot and show saving functions of the Vi6. "Since it was a three-band tour, each band had a snapshot, all saved under a show file. It's very easy - and really, that's the best feature of digital, in my opinion.
"I started with the snapshot that I had saved from Koko, made a few small changes, such as changing my tap delay from Aux 3 to Aux 1, to utilise a new software feature that allowed the tap function to appear on one of the six user definable buttons.
"We configured the outputs for our touring system, and off we went. It was great - the gates, comps, EQ's, the channel labels, the effects were all ready to go. The first soundcheck was a piece of cake and I was most of the way there at the start."
(Jim Evans)
