The tour played notable arenas and sports grounds up and down the UK and out as far as Malmo in Sweden to crowds of up to 30,000. "The Vi6 performed perfectly", said Dale Hanson, The Storys' FOH engineer. "No matter what conditions we performed in, including at the Sor Arena in Norway where all the crews were experiencing problems with the continuous rain, the Vi6 never hesitated and gave us a perfect show every time. The first time I got my hands on a Vi6 was at the O2 Arena's club - Indigo2, that immediately made my mind up - we had to use one on tour."
On the road for six weeks, the band played 10 venues. Hanson adds: "Being the support band, we often have to wait our place in the queue for sound checks and that can mean limited time to get it all done. The Vi6's simple, fast-to-operate, and easy-to-learn surface was perfectly suited - in fact I only had a short training session at the Soundcraft factory just before we left on tour and never once did I have to look at the manual, everything is laid out logically meaning minimal searching for functions."
He continues, "I particularly like the mic pre-amps, which meant I spent less time EQ'ing - I mainly used Hi- and Lo-pass filters. The auto-gain on the compressors particularly helped me as The Storys are a real vocal harmony band and the desk kept the vocals clear at a controllable level. And the Vistonics control of the Lexicon Fx was perfect, laid out like an analogue unit, great sound and very easy to use, no complicated pages to flick through and I really loved the tap delay."
Since the Story's toured with the Soundcraft Vi6, Version 2.0 software has been released (for the Vi6 and Vi4) and previewed at the AES in NewYork. The new functionality includes comprehensive Copy/Paste, Libraries and Master Linking.
(Jim Evans).
