Max Pezzali takes centre stage with Quantum7
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Since March of this year, Pezzali has been captivating audiences during his Italy tour, accompanied by his sound engineer, Michele Nicolino, who utilises a DiGiCo Quantum7 digital mixing console at the monitor position.
By working closely with professionals such as Riccardo Parravicini and Luca Morson, among others, Nicolino honed his expertise as a monitor engineer for renowned artists such as Mannarino, Willie Peyote, Michele Bravi, Bowland, and II Teatro degli Orrori. Alongside running his own recording studio, where he primarily focuses on mixing and mastering, Nicolino’s connection with Max Pizzeli was established through his work with Morson, who served as Pezzali’s engineer during the artist’s previous tour.
"In 2018, I had the pleasure of meeting Luca, who from the outset displayed genuine interest in collaborating,” recalls Nicolino. “He generously offered valuable advice and played a pivotal role in helping me secure the opportunity to work with Max [Pezzali] while he was involved in preparations for the Eros Ramazzotti world tour," shares Nicolino.
The decision to choose the Quantum7 for this year’s tour was the result of a careful selection process and a meticulous consideration of various factors, one of which was the desire to preserve a configuration as closely resembling the setup employed by Morson during two of Pezzali’s major productions at San Siro Stadium in the summer of 2022. “By maintaining a setup closely akin to Morson's, our aim was to ensure a seamless audio experience for the concertgoers, thereby upholding the overall high quality of the tour,” Nicolino explains.
For Pezzali's tour, all the audio equipment was sourced from renowned Italian rental company, Agorà. The monitor setup featured a Quantum7 with Optocore loop and SD-Racks.
"When it comes to monitoring, we opted for in-ears for everyone, except for a couple of 15" wedges that we kept as backups," explains Nicolino. "For the artist and the music director who was handling playback tracks like guitars, synths, and backing vocals, we provided an L/ R mix sent directly to their IEM transmitter. As for the band, we employed a personal monitor system, granting each member the freedom to access customised stems tailored precisely to their individual requirements. The stems were pre-mixed by me and kept separated from their own instrument, click, lead vocals, and comms channels."
