PARIS – After re-forming in 2009, Irish rock band The Cranberries embarked on a 2010 European Summer Tour. Their audio setup included a DiGiCo SD8 digital mixing console, manned by Oliver Waring at monitors.
"I've been using DiGiCo consoles for a number of years," said Waring. "I started out teching with a D5 when I was looking after Dave Guerin, monitor engineer for Morrissey. Then I inherited the monitor position and looked after Morrissey for a couple of years on the D5, later upgrading to an SD7.
"I've been working with The Cranberries for a couple of months now and I'd inherited a console from another manufacturer that wasn't my first choice. I changed to the SD8, and at its first soundcheck, after just one song, the band commented how different it sounded: that it was a lot crisper, a lot clearer and they knew straight away that something had changed."
Waring credited DiGiCo for flexibility. "There are features they have that, from a monitor engineer's point of view, I haven't seen on any other desk," he said. "It's great to have the ability to move the faders to any bank on the desk. I can have outputs next to inputs and control groups completely customized, all of which means complete flexibility."
Waring added that the move from a D5 to an SD7 meant a big jump in quality, and he learned that, both sonically and in terms of software, the SD8 was the same as the SD7.
"The transition down a level was very simple, no effort at all," he said. "It's just like the SD7, but with less horsepower.
"I also love the fact that I've got auxiliary rotaries on each bank, so regardless of which channel I have selected, I can be dialing in to one mix, whilst dealing with something else," he added.
"I like to be able to twiddle the knobs and do things like you would on an analog console, and be able to do more than one thing at once with more than one channel. I was blessed with two hands, so I may as well use them."
The band is mainly on in-ears, with side fills as back up, although drummer Fergal Lawler is not a fan of in ears, so Waring provided wedges instead.
"This set up means that the SD8's graphic EQs are ideal," he said. "I have two graphic EQs on my sidefills and I've set up a macro to punch the second one in. Delores [O'Riordan], our singer, has a habit of running right into the sidefill when she's dancing, so I've got a button on the macro section straight to the second sidefill GEQ for whenever she's there. I just tap it in and it takes all of those nasty features right out. Perfect!"
For more information, please visit www.digico.org.
