An up-tempo combination of his talents as a singer, comedian and imitator, the show alternated solo sketches with interaction between the artist, his guests and members of the audience, with a great deal of improvisation.
Fiorello's FOH engineer Hugo Tempesta used a DiGiCo SD7 console to mix live and broadcast sound, as well as recording every show. "With a 10-piece band and bandleader/pianist, mics for guests and spare mics, I'd no less than 156 input channels," he says. "Quite a number were doubled up on the console since, as well as the house sound reinforcement, I also mixed the music for broadcast, which requires different settings."
Monitor engineer Enrico Belli also had his hands full, as he explains: "I had absolutely no free channels on my DiGiCo D5 Live desk and we also created an incredible number of snapshots as over 100 songs were rehearsed but, thanks to the D-16c A-Net card for use with DiGiCo consoles, I was able to distribute audio via Cat-5e cable directly from the D5 to the 10 Aviom A-1611 personal mixers used by the band."
Tempesta sent the OB truck a L/R mixdown of the music in real time. "I had the duplicated channels under the same VCA, so the basic balance was set in the mix," he says. "But if I needed to raise an instrument during the show, the VCA raised the broadcast level too."
(Jim Evans)
