"Like a lot of engineers, I've been developing a rental side to what I do," says Duncan. "I had a few Senneheiser mics and various bits of outboard, and over time you think, 'actually, if I had this bit of kit it would be really useful'. A couple of years ago I was on a particular tour and I thought just that, so I bought a DiGiCo SD8 24 because it was what I needed and I knew there was enough work out there for it."
Since then, Duncan has added to his inventory with an SD11, which he used on the European leg of Rebecca Ferguson's tour. He is now deploying his SD8 with Sophie Ellis Bextor.
"Buying the SD11 was a little bit of a 'I quite fancy one of those'," he admits. "But I knew I had enough other equipment to send two systems out at the same time. I've also bought some back line trunks and other stuff that goes around a band. I'm not trying to be a backline company, I just like to get the things that make the job easier to do for everybody. But I'll only use my kit if it's right for everyone concerned. If I needed to use something like and SD7 because the set up was larger, then I would go ahead and use it."
Duncan has found that the compact nature of his equipment makes it extremely useable and the backup he gets from DiGiCo gives him the confidence to know his clients will always be happy.
"My main point of contact at DiGiCo is Tim Shaxson. I get fantastic service support from him and from DiGiCo in general," Duncan reports. "If ever I need to speak to the tech support guys I can get straight through and they're always super helpful with any questions I have.
"DiGiCo gives me great service, which means I can give my customers great service. That's a nice little bit of karma going on."
(Jim Evans)
