To ensure complete reliability and crystal-clear sound throughout The Brat Tour, Charli XCX’s FOH Engineer, Mat Collis and Monitor Engineer, Barry ‘Baz’ Tymms have chosen to rely upon a DiGiCo SD12-96 at the monitor position and Quantum 338 at front of house, both supplied by Eighth Day Sound.
“The Quantum 338’s ease of use and bright screens are a welcome upgrade and perfect over the summer for outdoor concerts,” Collis said. “When we are traveling the world, the availability of a DiGiCo makes a huge difference too. These practicalities, coupled with all the routing options and fantastically clean sound, but with the option of adding colour if I want to, makes the Quantum 338 the perfect choice for me.”
Collis has worked with Charli XCX for 13 years and has only missed a handful of shows in that time, so he is completely in tune with what is needed to deliver a great show. At the front of house position there are 32 channels of playback arriving via MADI to an Orange Box, DiGiCo’s bi-direction audio format conversion unit. The Orange Box uses DMI cards to create audio paths across any interface and has dual power supplies for added security.
“In addition to the audio needed for the show, we also have timecode and an internal BLDS (Buffer Loop detection Signal) for redundant switching,” he explained. “We also have analogue back-up signals, talkback for the sound team and for Charli if she needs it. The increased channel count on the Quantum 338 is useful; even with a vocal and track gig, you can quickly rack up the channel count, especially when you take the effects returns and duplicated inputs into account.”
Charli XCX garners a lot of media interest, so additional feeds for broadcast, recordings, or social media are often required. Additional channels are also needed for guest artists. With the high channel count, Collis really appreciates the three banks of faders available on the surface of the Quantum 338.
“I tend to send broadcast stems from the stage rack, but occasionally it’s just a left and right instrumental, with Charli’s vocal separated, or a direct MADI split,” he recalled. “Having pretty much all your channels in front of you is great and the Macros are really powerful; there are so many handy things you can utilise them for. I also love the Snapshot function, using it to lift levels during the chorus or switch tracks on and off.”
At monitors, Baz’s SD12-96 has 96 channels at 48kHz/96kHz and benefits from 155 Dynamic EQ processors that can be assigned to any input or output channel. The master section offers 16 graphic EQs, 12 digital effects, and up to 12 control groups. The main show is entirely to track, with guest artists, such as Lorde, Yung Lean and Addison Rae making surprise appearances to perform hugely popular remixes. Special guests also perform solo throughout the tour, something that kept things exciting for the audience and Tymms, as he continues.
“I started with Charli XCX for the latest run of UK Arena shows, so I’ve been with the tour just a few months,” he saic. “I use loads of Snapshots during the shows and when we have guest singers, I have additional Snapshots that I can incorporate for the extra checks we need. I love the two screens on the SD12-96 and the number of macros is really handy, especially on a small surface. It is a real favourite of mine and it’s always available all over the world.”
It is not just the clarity of workflow, fantastic sound and availability that keep Collis and Baz coming back to DiGiCo. The support of Eighth Day and DiGiCo is a huge help for them on tour. “I’ve only had to contact the team a few times and any issues have always been very quickly resolved,” Collis noted.
Baz concurred: “Everyone is always really helpful if you ever need anything,” he concludes. “It’s great to know that we have that support behind us, although the reliability of the consoles means we don’t often need to use it.”
