DiGiCo, Audio Logic on fDexluxe Concert EventAudio Logic Systems had busy September. The A/V integrator celebrated a 20th anniversary at its Minneapolis headquarters, and also took on production for a concert event at the historic Loring Theater, in addition to a number of smaller one-off events and installs. The show was reunited four original members of The Family -- the band formed by Prince -- "St. Paul" Peterson, Jellybean Johnson, Susannah Melvoin, and Eric Leeds -- after nearly three decades apart. The Loring concert saw the group re-emerge under the new name of fDeluxe, celebrating the release of the new CD, Gaslight. John Markiewicz, owner of Audio Logic, and systems tech Ed Coutu brought in a full d&b audiotechnik system comprised of J-SUBs, J Infra Subs, C7 mid-high cabs, Q10 front fills, with d&b M6 wedges, plus two DiGiCo consoles -- an SD8 at the front of house and an SD10 for handling the group's wedges and in-ear monitoring systems. "At Audio Logic, we take pride in the sound systems we use in production, and the union of the DiGiCo desk, whose sound quality is second to none, into the phenomenally sounding d&b audiotechnik systems is a marriage made in heaven," Markiewicz saod. "We don't even use drive racks anymore, we just go straight out of the desk through AES directly into the amps -- there's nothing in between -- and our sound quality is just fantastic." Initially the input list was quite large with provisions for the seven-piece band. In the end, it was decided that the inputs needed to be scaled back to a manageable 46. "The initial stage set called for two drums sets because original drummer Jellybean Johnson [playing bass] was left-handed and wanted to sit in on a few songs," explained Markiewicz. "As things got scaled back, we were only able to use one drum set, with the tech switching kits back and forth on those songs...which were not played in sequence! "I found out, a day and a half before the show, that KTCA, the Minnesota public TV station, had plans to record the show, so there was the addition of a few extra mics added for that. We agreed that since we were already tracking the show at FOH using an RME MADIFace we could simply split the feed. I set up KTCA'S engineer, Joe Demko, with a mono feed from my console to sync up in post, which would give them more control over the quality of it. Post mix engineer Brian 'Snowman' Powers was given an additional MADIface interface in monitor world and he tracked the whole show there." A helpful feature for Markiewicz was the ability to do the virtual soundcheck. "Going into this, I knew it would be a show that we'd have to fly by the seat of our pants on," he laughed. "The venue was fairly small and the group was very large and I thought it was best to put everybody on in-ear monitors. Because of budgets, we weren't able to provide full production for rehearsals, so mixing FOH was going to be very much on the fly on the day of the show. I decided to give [monitor engineer Scott Fahey] the SD10 for rehearsals, which is an excellent desk to mix in-ears on. By getting him the console early, he was able to mix the ears and whatever wedges we ended up using and I was able to take his preamp settings and recorded tracks and do a quick virtual soundcheck on my own back at the shop on an SD8. I was able to build scenes for the individual songs, and set up a fair amount of things so that I could get through the show as easily as possible without the benefit of a full production rehearsal. When I got the set list on Friday at load-in, I was able to put the scenes in order, set things such as my gates from song to song, Gain-Track off what Scott got at rehearsals and it allowed me to fine tune each song. It gave me a leg up so when I heard the songs for the first time on the night of the show, I was 80% there. Quite literally, it flew from there. We stepped into soundcheck, ran through three or four of the songs, and next thing you know, we were into the show. The virtual soundcheck feature really saved my butt on this show, and I think it's one of the best features of the console, period." Fahey had no experience on a DiGiCo console, but, he said, "I loved the way it sounded overall; the EQs were clean and it was very responsive. When I turned a knob, it did what I wanted it to do. I downloaded the offline software and spent some time on that so that when I got in front of the console I'd have a general idea how it worked. After that, I was able to get some hands-on time at the Audio Logic shop. "I enjoyed the EQs," he added. "They were easy to use and very responsive. If I wanted to make an adjustment at 400hz, I could turn the knob ever so slightly and tell the difference. The sends on faders mode was a godsend. Trying to do monitors with a group like this on a digital board without them would've been a nightmare. I set up the monitor mixes using them so I could jump between mixes quickly. I know about all the technical aspects, but I try to get inside the musician's head and get a sense of what they're looking for. When Paul [Peterson] asked for a little bit more guitar or vocal, he was talking 1 or 1-1/2 db. So it's a feeling of how much to push the fader or move the knob to get the sense of its sensitivity. That was the learning curve for me, but once I got the feel of it, it was great." "The DiGiCo consoles gave me the tools I needed to do this show," Markiewicz added. "Walking into an event like this, we all knew we'd have to make it happen rather quickly and work together. And that's exactly what happened. I told Paul I would love to mix for them on any project, but I wouldn't want to do it without a DiGiCo console -- whether its a SD11, SD8, SD7 or SD9 -- because they offer the tools I need to do the job and do it really well. Even though this show was like riding a freight train, it was a fun ride, but I couldn't have done it without the DiGiCo desks. And having their support on it made it all possible. At the end of the day, I couldn't have enjoyed myself more." 
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