DiGiCo and Waves provide flexibility for Israel Houghton tour
Published: WORSHIP
ASIA: DiGiCo mixing consoles have been used extensively throughout Christian singer/songwriter Israel Houghton’s recent world tour. Australian production company Forefront Productions was re-enlisted to provide FOH services for the Asia Pacific concerts having first provided mixing duties several years ago for the artist’s tour of Australia and New Zealand. With the concerts due to be subsequently released on DVD, Forefront opted to augment its existing Waves SoundGrid setup with DiGiGrid interfaces for recording.
‘It was a great call to get, as I have always been a fan,’ enthused Nick Burns, managing director of Forefront Productions. ‘Since then I’ve continued to do dates around the Asia Pacific region with him and also some in the USA, when I’m there and schedules allow.'
To cater for the various events, Forefront required a combination of 92 physical analogue and digital inputs plus effects returns, 24 aux mixes for IEMs, wedge monitors and sub mixes for an Allen & Heath ME-1 personal monitoring system.
‘In my opinion the sonic quality and flexibility of DiGiCo consoles is unmatched. Israel has an incredible ear and he’s told me that DiGiCo is also his sonic preference,’ explained Mr Burns. ‘For mixing, I have all the right controls at my fingertips and can customise the work surface to my particular needs. The consoles give me the options to do most things about three different ways, plus they have all the right hardware controls for everything that matters.’
With the brand of desk already decided and the tour picking up different consoles – SD5, SD7 and SD10 – in different countries, DiGiCo’s SD application reportedly provided him with a hassle-free transition.
‘SD Convert makes things really easy,’ he added. ‘It takes about 10 seconds to convert our latest session files for the next console - it’s brilliant!’
The SoundGrid setup already in use by Forefront comprised a SoundGrid Multirack and SoundGrid Server. The addition of a pair of DiGiGrid MGB interfaces allowed the company to record, process and playback up to 128 audio channels.
‘With a couple of MGBs, we have great options for multiple sources and destinations,’ Mr Burns continued. ‘And with a few MacBook Pros we have an easy to deploy, fully redundant recording and plug-in host system. In the locations where we won’t have a dedicated recording console, with a couple of quick re-routes the MGBs will deliver raw audio straight off the mic preamps. They can then have any number of plug-ins applied in the DAW or via SoundGrid Studio, which works perfectly for us.’