At the end of 2003, the re-formed 80s rock band sold out in the US, then travelled to New Zealand and Australia, where they played solo and in support of another D5 user, Robbie Williams on his Australian tour. The US leg of the tour played small- to mid-sized theatres and a combination of theatres and stadiums with Williams in New Zealand and Australia.
Front-of-house engineer is Scottie Pakulski with Simon Higgs on monitors, Jim Corbin - crew chief/system tech and Trevor Waite - system tech. "I'm feeding the PA as four stereo zones: V-Dosc, dV-Dosc, in-fills, and subs," comments Pakulski. "We are configured for 96 inputs and I am using just the internal effects and processing of the D5 and XTA DP226 crossovers for time correction - no outboard effects, processing, etc - and they all sound amazing. I believe I'm the first one to do this in a tour situation."
The D5 Live FMX system gives a full 112 mic inputs on stage, with a work surface for monitors and a work surface for FOH, both with their own local DiGiRacks. The Gain Tracking (patent pending) feature allows either console operator to change any input gain without affecting the sound balance on either console, and is also selectable on each channel independently. Three 150m drums of fibre optic cable are provided to allow for a digital split and full redundancy of the fibre multicore.
"I like the D5's size and fibre optic snake system," concluded Pakulski. "The fact that it sounds great doesn't hurt either!" Eighth Day Sound's Owen Orzak added: "We're really pleased with the rapid acceptance of the D5 by both FOH and monitor engineers who have not previously used digital consoles. Reliability of the D5 and support from DiGiCo has been top notch."
The tour travels to the UK in April and will be the first time the original line-up of the band has appeared here in 18 years.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
