With the eagerly anticipated return of the touring industry, North Carolina based Special Event Services (SES) seized the opportunity to deploy a d&b audiotechnik KSL rig on 3 Doors Down’s The Better Life – 20th Anniversary Tour. SES also called upon industry veteran Michael Mordente as their Audio Crew Chief and System Tech to coordinate the effort and to introduce them to DirectOut PRODIGY Series, specified for the tour.
“The PRODIGY.MC was deployed in tandem with the stage box as a modular converter to manage critical aspects of the I/O topology and redundant signal distribution on stage and to FOH,” said Mordente. “That means media, format, and sample rate conversion for interconnect between our pair of Yamaha PM10’s on stage and FOH, and for the main support act Seether’s DiGiCo SD9 at FOH and Avid Profile monitor desk. The PRODIGY.MP with its powerful FPGA and DSP was used as the main system drive at FOH, with the comprehensive and extremely potent globcon software platform controlling it all”, he added.
A redundant 96kHz MADI stream was the primary digital audio format with both AES3, and Analog as back-up sources, along with a Dante network “standing by” as yet an additional layer of redundancy.Even the DJ feed from the stage was managed and controlled by the PRODIGY’s enabling it to be fully isolated from the consoles and completely under the control of DirectOut’s devices.
Curtis Flatt, FOH Engineer for 3 Doors Down, was thrilled to have the PRODIGY.MP and PRODIGY.MC working together to drive the complex, yet comprehensive KSL system. “With DirectOut, I was able to have everything I needed in one unit – EQ, control, multiple redundancies, no added colouration, headroom for days, integrated input/output for system measurement and optimisation software, along with the ability to integrate multiple consoles – and that’s just scratching the surface! What it truly gave me was the sonic palette I needed to create a mix and not worry about it adding its own colourations”, said Flatt.
“I can also speak for my colleague Michael “Ace” Baker, FOH Engineer for Seether, who was very pleased with the system headroom, ease of integration and seamless interconnectivity between the Yamaha and Avid Dante-based consoles and the DiGiCo MADI-based desk” he added.
Production Manager and monitor engineer Warren Cracknell was extremely enthusiastic about having the PRODIGY’s on his tour and specifically requested them while enlisting Mike Mordente as the Audio Crew Chief and System Tech. “I had heard so much about the PRODIGY Series from my colleagues in the industry and really wanted to get them on this tour”, he said. “I am so glad Mike was available and able to join the tour. The PRODIGY’s made a world of difference and took everything to the next level sonically. I will be requesting them for all my tours going forward”, he added.
