DiGiGrid Offers Connectivity and Stability as Pioneering Live Streamed Gig Service Proves a Hit in Chile

Carlos Hormazabal is an experienced audio engineer from Santiago, Chile. In a career spanning ten years, he has worked with a wide variety of leading artists, including Franco el Gorila, Frank's White Canvas, Max Zegers, and Paloma Mami. As well as touring, he has worked at many national and international festivals in South America and Europe.

Earlier this year, for reasons all too familiar to the global performing arts community, Hormazabal saw his live work come to an abrupt halt. Recognizing that the short term future lay away from the live concert sector, Hormazabal drew on his experience to create ChileStream, a streaming platform through which artists and their audiences could reconnect. Assembling an experienced team of four, Hormazabal complemented his audio skills with a lighting designer, videographer, and producer, setting the bar for production values very high in order to provide subscribers with a well-presented, authentic experience. Hormazabal explains:

"It was quickly apparent that COVID-19 would have a profound effect on the live performance arena all over the world, so I turned my attention to finding ways of satisfying the demands of audiences to engage with their favorite artists. I think it is fair to say that we are pioneers of these high quality streaming shows here in Chile. The response has been amazing -- through our platform, fans can not only see the artist live but also enjoy interaction through chat, something that has proved very popular. Audio quality is absolutely vital to the success of the streams."

Hormazabal was already a user of the Waves LV1 system, integral to which are his two DiGiGrid IOX units and a DiGiGrid D. He uses the setup both live and in his studio, having fallen in love with the versatility of SoundGrid as well as the quality of the IOX preamps. Having enjoyed a long and friendly relationship with DiGiGrid's Chilean distributor RG Store, Hormazabal had first begun exploring DiGiGrid products a few years ago.

"I'd started to take a real interest in the products and the advantages they could give me. Around that time I happened to be working on a show with Franco el Gorila, where Wisin & Yandel were playing, and I grabbed a chat with their front of house engineer who shared some very positive views about the hardware."

Having become an established DiGiGrid user, Hormazabal is looking to expand his setup:

"The main advantages for me of the DiGiGrid system are its portability, sound quality and I/O, but above all its connectivity and stability. Having a plug and play system of this quality is, of course, fantastic! My next ambition is to acquire another LV1 system where I can incorporate three additional IOX to have independent preamp stages for both front of house and monitors."

So far, ChileStream has staged more than twenty live streamed performances of Chilean artists including Luis Jara, DrefQuila, Franco Figueroa, and Carolina Soto. To judge from the popularity of the service, Hormazabal and his team will be keeping busy for some time to come. While nothing can beat the immediacy and emotion of real live music, ChileStream, with its use of DiGiGrid and other cutting edge technologies is making a valiant effort to keep artists and audiences together during difficult times. Everyone, including Hormazabal, cannot wait to return to the "real thing" -- for now, the streams continue to flow.