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Diva Donna Summer is currently on tour for the first time in six years, taking ‘An Evening With Donna Summer’ across the USA in venues ranging from casino show rooms up to 10,000-capacity arenas.
Front of house engineer Tom Heinisch is the owner of New York-based SK Systems. Both he and monitor man Dave Belis are using DiGiCo D1 Live consoles, which were purchased after Tom realised that SK Systems needed additional, flexible mixing facilities.
This year SK Systems had to service multiple tour packages simultaneously, while still servicing its usual summer workload of corporate events and one-off shows. In the past year they also had to turn down a couple of tour opportunities due to the lack of digital mixing surfaces, so additional desk capacity became a priority.
“We asked ourselves what was required to service an entertainment based tour, while also aware that the Donna Summer tour would happen,” says Tom. “Being on a tight budget, we knew that the Donna Summer tour had to fit into one semi trailer.”
In April, Shane Morris from DiGiCo took a D1 for SK Systems to examine. This convinced Tom that it was the right desk for the company to purchase.
“Within a short period, our in-house engineers were plugging in an SM58 and an IPOD, assigning busses, routing signals, adding effects and creating output,” he says. “Although I’d only mixed on analogue desks before, once my brain comprehended the I/O and routing, I knew the creative process would follow easily. The packaging was the right size and appeared to be a problem solver in many ways.”
SK Systems purchased two D1s and put them straight to work on the Donna Summer tour, along with Sennheiser IEMs, wedge monitors, microphones, stands and cables.
“Most venues now have their own in-house systems that cover the venue really well, or they have local vendors who are familiar with the required coverage,” says Tom. “This has proved more economical than to lug a truckload of motors, cabinets, amplifiers, cabling and crew around the country to replace something that is already adequate. “It’s a sonic compromise, but it hasn’t impacted the show in a negative way. We put a lot of trust in the local vendors; most have their coverage angle homework already done, great PA packages and crews.”
The D1, however, has made a major difference to the tour, which Tom readily admits: “When listening back to the show recordings, the absence of the analogue crosstalk is most noticeable,” he says. “There can be more depth to the mix as instruments are not fighting each other and can have their ‘space’. Dealing with 25 faders rather than 70-plus took some getting used to, but is no longer an issue. The absence of board tape, sharpies and patch cables is great. And the ability to look at the settings of 16 inputs simultaneously blows away other digital mixing systems.”
He notes that providing an analogue desk for monitors would have meant ‘Y’ cables and numerous stereo modules. In one-off situations that could provide local vendors with difficulties, so a D1 was also employed for monitor engineer Dave Belis.
Dave’s introduction to DiGiCo consoles was rapid, but it highlights how user-friendly they are.
“I was working on a Lostprophets tour last year and we met up with the Korn tour for a night,” he says. “The Korn show was using DiGiCo D5’s and we were using their gear for a festival style bill. Both myself and Doofus (Lostprophets' FOH engineer) had no prior DiGiCo experience and only few hours before the show to read up.
“We sat down with a D5 DVD and, when show-time came, there were no significant changes or glitches after the first song. Considering our slot was in the middle of a festival-style bill, I can only call that a very smooth transition.
“If I wanted to pretend the desk was an analogue desk, I could and that would be that - up and running in minutes. Despite some minor difficulties with the consoles advanced features, I remain impressed, excited, and enamoured with the D1's flexibility.”
Overall, it seems that using the D1s has been a completely positive experience, to the extent that analogue consoles will no longer be considered for future Donna Summer tours, as Tom Heinisch explains: “We have got the audio and backline package down to about eight square feet of truck space, which makes even the accountant happy,” he smiles. “After a one off experience with an analogue console on the tour, it became evident that Donna's rider will be changing to no longer accept an analogue console. And that comes from the top.”
24th August 2005
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