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Soundcraft Straddles the Generations at Glasto
Several generations of Soundcraft digital and analogue desks took Glastonbury by storm this year — spanning a range of locations from the main Pyramid Stage to the Left Field tent, where SSE Audio and SKL respectively fielded their fleet of Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles.
On the main stage, Russ Tite mixed The Kooks set on one of SSE Audio’s four flagship Vi6 digital consoles, while another of their boards was on monitor duty with Kasabian’s sound engineer, Mark ‘Yogi’ Novissimo.
An early adopter of Soundcraft’s digital Vistonics platform, SSE Audio’s Pete Russell explained why the Vi6 is proving so popular with many of their accounts.
“Sound engineers like Russ Tite really like the sound of the desk,” he says. “One of the real plus points is that desk has its own plug-in FX card with its own Lexicon DSP, so you can’t run out of processing power. This is not the case with other digital desks, which can run out of DSP if you have lots of idle plug-ins.”
He continued, “Both the eight Lexicon FX and 35 BSS graphics provide excellent sound quality, — but what really wins it for the Vi6 is the fact that it’s so easy to use. It’s highly visual and tactile, it’s sonically good and the onboard FX are great.”
The Kooks sound engineer agrees entirely, stating that other than his trusty TC D2 outboard delay, every processing effect he needs is contained within the surface of the desk.
Russ Tite had avoided the digital scene entirely until Pete Russell convinced him otherwise, midway through a hectic tour schedule. “It took about ten minutes to familiarise myself with the Vi6, and I loved it immediately. I just pushed the faders up and I was practically there!
“With the eight Lexicon FX on the DSP card I have set up six of my favourite reverbs for use on different songs. The gates work well, the comps are absolutely fantastic and the de-esser really rocks.”
Over in the more politically-focused Left Field tent, SKL provided a pair of their Vi6’s — at the house and monitor ends. Sam Parker, sound engineer for one of the headliners, Hard Fi, helped himself to some pre-festival training from Soundcraft to ensure he could navigate the desk to its optimum.
Working for production company Eventive, the Edinburgh-based rental company provided all the PA and control, with Dougie Winchester and Bob McDougall respectively babysitting/system teching at the FOH and monitor positions.
Said SKL director, Stephen Patterson. “The general feedback from sound engineers couldn’t have been better and most commented on the quality of sound and the desk’s ease of use; they really liked it.”
He added, “The Vi6 represents the best of both worlds — a Studer-based desk with a control surface from Soundcraft. From an economic point of view, the cost of ownership is really low, and to my mind when you maintain a system well it is much faster to use than an analogue board.”
In view of the quantity of local work running in parallel to the Glastonbury Festival, SKL were sufficiently confident to invest in a third Vi6 only last month.
Elsewhere at Glastonbury, a Soundcraft MH2 and a GB series desk were used in the Pussy Parlour (part of the Dance Village), and a K3 could be seen in The Glade (small outdoor dance stage)
In the Cabaret tent, Adlib Audio used a 40-channel Soundcraft Series 4 analogue console at FOH, with a 48 channel MH3 onstage, while in the Theatre tent, they fielded a Soundcraft Delta 24-channel console at FOH which was also used for monitors.
Commented Andy Brown, Soundcraft product manager tour sound, “Glastonbury was the perfect shop window for Soundcraft analogue and digital technology. The high profile given to the Vi6 by SSE and SKL, and the universally-great feedback received from sound engineers, demonstrated that this is now firmly established in the marketplace.”
9th July 2007
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