Frank Grønbæk, FOH Engineer with Lukas Graham, has been using various mixing consoles while continuing to search for a solution that also offers exceptional sound quality and reliability but when Grønbæk visited Solid State Logic’s U.K. headquarters and had a demonstration of the System T Tempest Control App, paired with a lightweight TE1 processing engine and a 16-channel Fader Tile, he realised he had found a system he required.
“I said, ‘Hey, I’ll have one of those, that’s exactly what we’ve been looking for!’” recalled Grønbæk. He has worked with Lukas Graham since 2012. The band’s Monitor Engineer, Rasmus Valentin, also works for Alfa Audio, SSL’s live sound products distribution partner for Denmark. “We’re both involved with the same band, but we’re also involved with the same brand,” Grønbæk said.
In Grønbæk’s custom-configured FOH mixing package, a System T 16-channel Furniture Fader Tile and a dedicated touchscreen are housed in a custom case to protect the rig in transit. A single-rack-space SSL TE1 Tempest Engine, which supports up to 256 paths, is paired with a custom-configured Windows-based computer running SSL’s Tempest Control App.
The TCA Flypack is interfaced to an outboard hardware interface managing routing and matrixing in and out of the setup, as well as a hardware processor providing multi-zone P.A. management. A Mac Mini computer also acts as a server, hosting plug-ins and presets that Grønbæk has developed during more than a decade with Lukas Graham, and additionally runs sound level measurement and metering apps.
Grønbæk’s idea, beginning in 2016 with Lukas Graham’s busy touring schedule, was to find a lightweight mixing console that took up minimal rack space and occupied a very small footprint at FOH, yet offered super high-quality audio. “We travel a lot and do as many as 90 gigs a year, all over the world. We need to be able to travel light when we fly, so the weight can never exceed 32 kilos for the whole rack,” he said. “But we also want to maintain a high level of audio quality and consistency. It doesn’t matter if we’re playing a festival for 30,000 people, a showcase for 500 people or a morning TV show, it has to sound exactly the same all the time.”
Before 2016, when the touring production switched to portable consoles, Grønbæk said: “We did some festival gigs with a combination of SSL Live consoles at front-of-house and monitors, so we were familiar with the sound of SSL equipment. But you cannot easily fly with an L550.”
Before adopting the TCA flypack solution he had been using various other console brands, but found some of them to be functionally lacking and none of them met his high expectations for audio quality. “They didn’t have this high-class, super transparent, super nice sound that SSL can contribute,” he added.
Despite the high channel count supported by the TE1 Tempest Engine, Lukas Graham’s stage setup demands relatively few inputs, Grønbæk explained: “We have a drum kit and a bunch of microphones for vocals, so about 16 of the 40 or 45 channels coming from the stage are mic-level.”
The wireless bass passes via Dante to the console while the wireless guitar is fed over AES/EBU. The outputs from the computers driving the MIDI keyboards are routed to FOH via MADI. The support tracks playback rig is also networked over Dante to FOH. “Being able to route everything from the TCA touch screen is brilliant, and a workflow which is unique to SSL,” said Grønbæk.
When mixing, Grønbæk typically has the system configured with VCAs on the top fader layer for easy access. “You can easily query a fader,” he said, which spills the contributing elements or destinations for that path across the control surface. The link between the physical faders and the touchscreen can be disengaged, allowing him to direct his creative focus onto the faders yet still adjust other channels on the touchscreen.
System T has two faders per channel, he also noted: “So whenever there’s a new song, there’s a new level on fader two, but fader one stays at unity gain. All my faders are flat at 0 dB, but the other fader is doing all the automation underneath.”
Grønbæk first took his new TCA console out on a U.S. tour with Lukas Graham in January 2024: “When I started touring, I had beta software, but it has always been super stable,” he concluded.
