Tom George of Eighth Day Sound configured a flexible system for the venue that they could grow into - an SD8-36 at FOH, SD8-24 at monitors and a D Rack - one that would accommodate their average 24-40 inputs per show and allow them to patch in guest consoles and literally to go from a house console to a guest system with a push of a button. Production manager Tom Shebest, who handles the majority of mixing for bands not travelling with an engineer, was impressed with the recommendation.
"Eighth Day made a convincing case for the DiGiCo SD8," he recalled. "We looked at other consoles in the same price range and found that DiGiCo offered great value and a lot of extra features for the price. A lot of touring engineers come in that are super comfortable with digital consoles but tend to get a little flustered when switching back between banks a lot. The ability to have 36 channels up at one time is great especially with the fact you have three assignable knobs for every channel. The fact that you can have two auxes and pan on 36 channels at any given time is fantastic and something that really isn't available on any other console."
Monitor engineer Timothy Nichols added, "The layout made sense to me immediately, and it seems like most touring engineers using it for the first time can get around just fine. It's quite easy to customise the layout of the desk for one's personal preferences. Fader banks can be reassigned, custom fader banks can be created, etc. I have a starting template that is both tailored to my preferences and can accommodate the needs of touring engineers without a lot of fuss or making them wait while I reconfigure."
(Jim Evans)
