Having worked for Newcastle-based technical production company NiteLites for many years before setting up his own company, Technical Knowhow director Andy Magee was already familiar with DiGiCo's D series consoles. He purchased his SD9 from Stage Electrics, following conversations with the company's Ed Gamble.
"I used the D series for about four years. They were my desk of preference," he says. "When I heard about the SD9, I decided to get one straight away. To be honest, when I found out the price I would have been happy to buy one without even seeing it. I knew it would be really good."
In contrast, Paul Sparrow was not a previous DiGiCo user. "I was looking for a digital console that used a Cat 5 multicore. I needed 32 inputs and plenty of outputs for monitors, Front of House and sound distribution, so the SD9 ticked all the boxes," he says.
Both companies have already used their SD9s on a wide variety of events, the consoles coping with an array of demanding situations. In Magee's case, the annual six-day Methodist Conference at Portsmouth Guildhall in late June provided plenty of challenges.
"There was a lot going on. We were providing feeds for internal and external broadcast. There was a lot of monitoring - we were using every bus, every physical in and out, every graphic EQ and every effects engine on the console," he says. "Being able to mix mono and stereo channels in with Groups, Auxes, Matrix and Control Groups made things so much easier, and being able to get everything I needed to control, from 44 inputs + internal sources on to 24 faders was great."
Sparrow has done an array of music events with his SD9, including events at Norwich cathedral, Southampton Mela, Bath International Music Festival, City of London Festival with the Grand Union Orchestra and Petworth Festival, West Sussex
"The Norwich cathedral event was a big production, with a local 100 piece choir and guests Arve Henrikson and Jan Bang. At Petworth Festival the venue is a church with side chapels and rear seating. The various seating areas are run off matrix outputs with separate delay times and EQ," he says.
"The SD9 has everything you want, there are enough outputs, enough graphics, compressors, gates and effects. The first event I did with it, I was able to leave three multicores and three racks at home. I also really like the touchscreen as well, plus DiGiCo's technical backup is excellent. I feel I've only just started exploring all the available facilities: snapshots, macros and networking are all to come."
(Jim Evans)
