UK - Charli XCX’s Brat album was one of the sounds of 2024. She has been making music for well over a decade, but this year has seen a massive explosion in her popularity. The album dominated the charts, dictating the colour and the vibe of the year.
The Brat Tour started in July 2024 and continues throughout 2025 with dates all over the world. Charli commands the stage, with only occasional guests and minimal set pieces, so all eyes are on her for the entire performance. To ensure complete reliability and crystal-clear sound throughout the tour, front-of-house engineer Mat Collis and Barry Tymms, monitor engineer have chosen to rely on the DiGiCo SD12-96 at the monitor position and Quantum 338 at FOH, both supplied by Eighth Day Sound.
“The Quantum 338’s ease of use and bright screens are a welcome upgrade and perfect over the summer for outdoor concerts,” Collis says. “When we are travelling the world, the availability of a DiGiCo makes a huge difference too. These practicalities, coupled with all the routing options and fantastically clean sound, but with the option of adding colour if I want to, makes the Quantum 338 the perfect choice for me.”
Collis has worked with Charli XCX for 13 years and has only missed a handful of shows in that time, so he is completely in tune with what is needed to deliver a great show. At the FOH position there are 32 channels of playback arriving via MADI to an Orange Box, DiGiCo’s bi-direction audio format conversion unit. The Orange Box uses DMI cards to create audio paths across any interface and has dual power supplies for added security.
“In addition to the audio needed for the show, we also have timecode and an internal BLDS (Buffer Loop detection Signal) for redundant switching,” he explains. “We also have analogue back-up signals, talkback for the sound team and for Charli if she needs it. The increased channel count on the Quantum 338 is useful; even with a vocal and track gig, you can quickly rack up the channel count, especially when you take the effects returns and duplicated inputs into account.”
At monitors, Barry (Baz) Tymms’ SD12-96 has 96 channels at 48kHz/96kHz and benefits from 155 Dynamic EQ processors that can be assigned to any input or output channel. The master section offers 16 graphic EQs, 12 digital effects, and up to 12 control groups. The main show is entirely to track, with guest artists, such as Lorde, Yung Lean and Addison Rae making surprise appearances to perform hugely popular remixes. Special guests also perform solo throughout the tour, something that kept things exciting for the audience and Tymms, as he continues.
“I started with Charli XCX for the latest run of UK arena shows, so I’ve been with the tour just a few months,” he says. “I use loads of Snapshots during the shows and when we have guest singers, I have additional Snapshots that I can incorporate for the extra checks we need. I love the two screens on the SD12-96 and the number of macros is really handy, especially on a small surface. It is a real favourite of mine and it’s always available all over the world.”
