DiGiCo consoles process C. Tangana tour
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With the album peaking atop the Spanish music charts and bringing C. Tangana his first Latin Grammy nomination as a performer, a concert tour in support of El Madrileño, Sin Cantar ni Afinar Tour, was announced. The first date in Málaga earlier this year sold-out almost instantly, with over 30 shows taking place around Europe since. Providing powerful processing and stability are DiGiCo Quantum 7 and SD7 consoles, supplied by audiovisual equipment rental company Fluge Audiovisuales.
FOH engineer Felipe Lara has been mixing for C. Tangana for the last four years and explains how he started using the SD7. “I started the current tour with a different console brand but it was having stability problems, so three days in, I opted to switch. I chose the SD7 because I know the consoles, its processing power and stability. Being so familiar with the DiGiCo environment, I knew I’d be able to replicate the work I’d done on the previous console to the SD7 very quickly,” he says.
With Fluge Audiovisuales’ extensive product inventory, which includes SD7, SD5, SD10, SD8, SD12, SD11 and the latest Quantum7, Quantum338 and Quantum225 models, meant supplying the tour was not an issue.
Lara notes that although he always found DiGiCo’s interface easy to work with. “It’s an environment that’s very similar to that of the analogue world,” he says. “At a glance, you know what’s on each input or output without having to scroll through different windows. The workflow can be as complex as you want it to be thanks to the latest consoles’ almost limitless options, but it’s really easy to understand DiGiCo’s work philosophy.”
For Sin Cantar ni Afinar, Lara’s work structure is largely based on Groups. “There are 103 inputs coming from the stage, plus my FX returns and sends, and parallel processing channels, so grouping is the key to my console structure,” he explains. “The key to having an agile workflow is in the grouping of sections. It’s about simplifying and being able to process the different sections together.
“I don't have 200 faders on my surface and can go to each one without traveling through layers, and while fader banks are a nimble tool, having the ability to group and send those groups to other groups allows me access to all of them in accessible and visible sections. This structure also allows a sidechain process to affect an entire section. That’s something that’s really useful for me in this show.”
Seven months into the tour, and having already completed over 30 concerts, Lara is delighted with his SD7 and its performance and the comfort of knowing they are available almost anywhere.
“Although we travel the world with our control systems, the situation has arisen that we arrive, but the equipment doesn’t because it travels another way,” he says. “The size of this show means it would be impossible to start from scratch with another console, so it’s very reassuring to know that wherever we go, we will find an SD7 available. That’s something you have to consider when choosing a console. “I worked with the SD7 at the start of the tour and later moved on to the Quantum 7. Personally, I feel very comfortable working with my SD7, it's super flexible and sounds like a cannon!”
Monitoring for the tour is handled by long-term DiGiCo user Carlos del Valle, who relies on Quantum 7 to deliver the functionality, audio performance and the scale required to cope with a large production like the Sin Cantar ni Afinar Tour.
As with Lara, del Valle appreciates the reliable setup they have. “My monitor set up is quite complicated, with KLANG integrated via DMI, a Waves SuperRack used for inserts and Live Professor via Waves Soundgrid for reverbs. But it all works like a charm, every day.”
Additional dates have recently been announced for the Sin Cantar ni Afinar LATAM Tour 22, where C Tangana will bring El Madrileño’s spark to audiences in Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.
