DiGiCo's Quantum326 Shape-Shifts on the Road with King Gizzard & the Lizard WizardSix-piece multi-genre Australian band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard recently brought their energetic stage show to the US on this summer's Phantom Island Tour, which featured collaborations with local orchestras on eight nights of the 12-date run. For the first time, the band's front-of-house engineer Sam Joseph and monitor engineer Joe Santarpia, both longtime DiGiCo console users, were behind new small-footprint Quantum326 desks. The reduced footprint of the two Quantum326, which were supplied by Nashville-based Worley Sound, offered critical space savings at the front-of-house and monitor positions. That is ideal for a band still playing the occasional smaller venue, not to mention the truck pack, Joseph reports. "Often, our production trucks are packed high and to the door!" With the smaller form factor, he says, "You can tip the console with two people. Plus, the layout is great, and the number of layers and macros make it all super accessible." King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are amazingly prolific; Phantom Island is their 27th album release since 2010, with projects running the gamut from psychedelic and prog rock to metal and even folk. "Gizz are a very musically diverse band, and they like their live show to be dynamic and unexpected, so Joe and I must be super flexible and prepared for anything," says Joseph. He has been with the band since 2016 and additionally works with "Gizz-related" bands like Babe Rainbow, The Murlocs, the Allah-Las, and, most recently, GUM/Ambrose Kenny-Smith. To be ready for anything, he says, "We are working off a 'master' input list this year that includes inputs for a standard 'rock' show, a 'rave' show, the recent 'orchestra' shows, and even some 'acoustic' shows. We have access to all these inputs at any time on every show file, so we are ready no matter what they throw at us." For the Phantom Island Tour, the Quantum326 consoles were paired with two DiGiCo SD-Racks and an Orange Box on an Optocore loop transporting about 100 inputs, with Santarpia controlling the head amp gain. "Additionally, we were sending and receiving quite a few channels between front-of-house and monitors," says Santarpia, who has been with Gizz for 10 years in various roles, also touring with Mac Demarco, Band of Horses, The Decemberists, Dom Dolla and Kurt Vile. "The loop makes it all seamless and easy without the extra analog hardware and without having to jump through hoops to split the MADI." The Orange Box converts, and clocks, MADI inputs from an Ableton rig to HMA fiber for the band's 'rave' sets. "Worley Sound's packages are works of art," Santarpia adds. "Everything is super clean and laid out in really smart ways, so getting up and running is as fast as it can be. Their attention to detail for our individual needs puts them many steps above the larger rental houses. Truly an engineer's dream!" "I've loved the upgrade to Quantum consoles and have been able to move a lot of my outboard processing onto the desk," Joseph reveals. "Gizz love saturation -- they want it on everything -- and I have found the Mustard Tubes a game-changer. It can go from super subtle to absolutely blown out, and each setting has a nice, unique sound. Since it's onboard, it's easy to build this into macros or snapshots to dial in and recall for different songs." The Quantum platform allowed Joseph to assign DiGiCo's Mustard Source Expander (MSE) to every vocal channel. "Or anything else, really," he chuckles. "It lowered stage bleed noticeably and was super useful on the recent orchestra run where it was important to get rid of as much bleed as possible. I've also enjoyed the different Mustard Compressor options, hearing how they all react differently and finding the right tool for each job." "I'm using Mustard extensively, mostly the MSE," Santarpia also reports. "I love that there's a sidechain option for the detector. The Naga 6 [six-band dynamic EQ module] is cool. I love assigning faders to the parameters, especially threshold. That's great for DJ sets where I'm hyper-focused on a stereo channel and ride those thresholds on the faders." He continues, "The Nodal Processing is quite useful for monitors as I have band members with some wildly different preferences on tones. I've got tons of snapshots automating multiple moves for specific moments throughout each set. Since every set is different, I'm programming and reprogramming these daily with ease." Overall, he adds, "There's a clarity and roundness to the Quantum desks that makes everything come together quickly and beautifully." At FOH, Joseph says, "I don't use many snapshots as the band change setlists and songs on a whim every night. But I rely heavily on macros and have a bunch of them set up for different vibes. Having 40 macros available now on the Q326 is awesome; I used to run out quickly, but not anymore. And the color-coding and labeling options are great." Santarpia uses Virtual Soundcheck regularly and generates a 64-track recording of every show via an MGB interface into the QRec app. "I have a macro that toggles the 'Listen to Copied Audio' on/off and can switch between VS and analog inputs quickly," he says. Those multitrack recordings are used if the band wants to mix and release a live version of a song or album, which they frequently do." Joseph adds, "I make a 32-track post-fader/post-processing stem mix at FOH that the band often releases publicly a couple of days after a show. The onboard UB-MADI interface is great for my stem mix recording. The sound quality is great and it's nice running the desk at 96k and being able to record at 48k," a space-saver since the band's set can run as long as three hours. The band decided to begin recording to multitrack early in Joseph's tenure, he says, a decision that led them to purchase an SD11 console with UB-MADI and a D-Rack that together served as the main FOH console until 2022. "It sounded great, and we could check it onto a flight. Since then, I have been a 100 percent DiGiCo convert. I think my current show file is a descendant of that first SD11 file." The SD11 now resides in the band's Melbourne studio where it is used as a rehearsal and recording console. Joseph concludes, "I like DiGiCo consoles because they sound familiar to me; each iteration sounds better than the last but still has a recognizable sonic quality. There is a warmth to the tonality I like that lends itself to my mixing style and the band's music. Same with the layout - familiar but improved. It's not like learning a whole new desk each upgrade, it's just a better version of what you were already comfortable on." For details on the band's upcoming touring itinerary, visit www.kinggizzardandthelizardwizard.com. 
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