AUSTIN, TX — Bags packed? Check. Passports? Check. Tickets? Check. DiGiCo SD8/DRack system? Check. Why would one need a console of this sort while traveling? Rod Nielsen of Austin, Texas’ Big House Sound, Inc., has the answer. Nielsen purchased two SD8s over three years ago to fill the bill for Blondie and Blues Traveler tours, as well as to accommodate specific rental requests. After Blondie wrapped on their ninth studio album, Panic Girls, the band set out on a near five-week tour across Europe and the UK.
That’s when Nielsen knew the SD8 would be along for the ride. The console’s diminutive size gave him the luxury of shipping it with the rest of the backline—and allowed him to keep the band’s sound consistent from venue to venue without being at the mercy of whatever rental gear was available at each gig. Size notwithstanding, Nielsen found so much more to love about the console.
“Functionality-wise, the SD8 is great,” Nielsen said, “but the biggest reason I like the console is it really does sound quite a bit better than other consoles in its price range. The high frequencies on the console don’t seem to fall apart as easily as other consoles.”
Attributes Nielsen found particularly appealing were the SD8’s ability to be set up anyway he wanted it, and the inputs could be any where at any time. The console also allows the operator to have control groups and returns in any place.
The consoles’ ability to flip through pages without having the faders flip, like on other consoles, also is a key element for Nielsen.
“On the SD8, it’s just the ones you want to (flip),” Nielsen said. “So functionality wise, it seems a lot faster to me. And seems like it makes a lot more sense.”
Also making sense was the frequency-selective compression. Most of the time, Nielsen admits he doesn’t have to do much EQ’ing for Deborah Harry’s vocals, but there are times when she tends to “eat the mic” on certain notes.
“Because of that proximity effect as she moves into the mic, low-end gets created and it needs to be taken care of somehow,” he said. “Using the frequency selective compression, I can compress those frequencies that tend to stick out as she gets closer to the mic. That alone is a godsend and it changes the way I feel about her vocals. It’s specifically incredible!”
Another technique Nielsen employs to beef up the band’s sound is to double-buss the drums.
While one drum set is compressed to level the whole thing out and make it super smooth, the other is lightly compressed to make the drums pop during performances. The end result of mixing the two creates exactly what Nielsen is after.
“Mixing those two together gives me a drum mix that sits right in the pocket yet still has a lot of life to it, with a punchy kick drum and punchy snare,” he said.
For the guitar sounds, Nielsen takes both mic signals from the guitar amps and a Radial JDX box that sit between the amps and the speaker cabinets. This allows him to create the sound he’s looking for, but the delay between the direct and mic signal has to be corrected. On the SD8, he uses the input delay to make this correction.
“Other consoles don’t give you the fine-grained delay on the inputs that you need to get things to really line up and the DiGiCo does that,” Nielsen said.
The console proved handy and solved challenges faced during the Isle of Wight Festival last year. Nielsen was asked to unpatch from his splits and run them through the active split through the festival remote recording truck first.
While normally this would cause problems with gains changing and other general issues, the SD8’s onboard MADI capabilities rectified the problems quickly.
“As MADI becomes more of a standard, it’s nice to have a console that’s more compatible than just about any other systems out there,” he said.
In hindsight, Nielsen and Big House partner Roy Kircher have been more than satisfied with their SD8 purchases. A decision that was a result of hearing the console in action at the Austin City Limits Festival a number of years ago. He says although the deciding factor at the time was the buzz on the console and its growing popularity, it proved to sound and perform better than most of the consoles they had in stock.
“So we bought two,” he laughed. “We’ve had NO issues with either one of our consoles, whether its reliability or crashing issues, and they’ve paid for themselves time and time again.”
For more, please visit www.digico.org and www.bighousesound.com.
