HELSINKI, Finland — Eppu Normaali, a rock band famous in its native Finland and beyond, has amassed a lot of gear since it was formed 33 years ago, so drummer Aku Syrjä formed Akun Tehdas as a subsidiary of the band to rent out some of its gear to others when Eppu Normaali was not on tour.
Since then, Akun Tehdas has emerged as a major player in the Finnish sound rental market, and one that recently added a DiGiCo SD8 console, adding it to the D5 Live console which had already been part of its inventory. The SD8 is now being used FOH on Eppu Normaali’s current European tour.
“The price-quality ratio of the SD8 was just right for us, as well as the console’s compact size,” said Antti Salminen, Akun Tehdas / Eppu Normaali system tech and monitor engineer. “Currently we also have one on hire, but this summer it’s likely that we will purchase a second one.”
Eppu Normaali, which has been called the “Finnish Dire Straits,” is known for its stripped-back rock ‘n’ roll sound, and the band only requires 18 inputs. However, four ambient mics are also used because the SD8’s recording facility is used at every show, with the recordings being made available for sale soon afterwards via the band’s Web site.
Using a MacBook Pro, Steinberg Nuendo software and an RME HDSPe MADIface interface, band FOH engineer Reijo Hammar can record up to 56 simultaneous channels.
“It is a very efficient way of recording the shows and being able to purchase a high quality recording within a few days of it happening is proving very popular with fans,” Antti said.
“We have also tried the virtual soundchecks feature, which works very well, but the band likes to be there for soundchecks, so we haven’t had to use it on tour yet.”
As for the show itself, Eppu Normaali’s length of time in the industry manifests itself in the way that it is mixed in a very “hands on” way. However, the advantages of the high quality onboard effects have been fully embraced.
“There are many little tweaks in mixing the show, but the onboard effects are so good that we don’t need any outboard processing,” said Antti. “Overall Reijo and I both really like the fact that the SD8 is compact and the dynamics are very good. It’s an excellent console.”
Another top Finnish band served by Akun Tehdas is Children of Bodom, an act with a somewhat darker and heavier sound than Eppu Normaali.
“The first time we took an SD8 out, I had done just one festival with a D5 so I had very little experience with DiGiCo’s consoles,” said band FOH engineer Pietsu “Chiddy” Pietikäinen. “But I found the SD8 very easy to learn. I played with it for a couple of hours in the warehouse and found it very straightforward to use.”
Children of Bodom use 28 stage inputs, with all the console’s local inputs also used for sample and iPod playback, plus outboard.
“The effects in the console are really natural, almost too natural, which is why I use some outboard effects for drum plates and certain special effects,” said Chiddy. “So I have a TC Electronic M3000 for drums, a Yamaha SPX2000 for vocal special effects and a Lexicon MPX550 for vocal doubling. Apart from that, I am using the onboard effects for everything else — vocal and guitar reverbs, delays, etc.”
Chiddy is recording all the Children of Bodom shows at FOH, again with a MacBook Pro plus RME MADIface, but using Reaper software for recording.
“We have a couple of audience mics going to tracks, so we can use the material later, but its main function is using the multitrack playback for soundcheck and tuning the PA,” he said. “It’s a really helpful function.
“As a live console, I really like it,” Chiddy added. “All the necessary channels are visible and the metering is good. To be honest, I’m a habitual analog engineer and I really like having most of my “main” channels in VCAs, so I like the amount of DCAs on the SD8 and the way they act like analog VCAs.
“It’s also a ‘loud’ board — the headroom and output levels are high. That’s very important for me, because if you have to hit the board inputs too hard to get the proper output, it sounds awful.
“The AD/DA converters and mic preamps sound very natural, channel layering is really easy to use and the compressors and gates work well, which in my opinion are usually rubbish on digital consoles,” Chiddy added.
The current Children of Bodom tour has put the SD8’s reliability and DiGiCo’s technical support to the test, with a couple of unfortunate liquid-based incidents.
“Yes, it’s been a real road test for the console,” Chiddy said, with a rueful smile. “In Leipzig, a pint of beer ended up in the master fader module during the interval change over. We re-patched a couple things and managed to get through.
“Then, a couple of gigs later, when we had received a new master section from DiGiCo, our lead singer / guitar player threw a water bottle, which crowd-surfed its way to the console — with its contents ending up across the control surface. The result was that he killed two of his own guitar channels and vocal reverb, which we felt was an interesting development in ‘artist remote self muting technology.’ Luckily it happened during the last encore, so after the gig we took out the module, dried it, and everything worked absolutely fine the next day.”
For more information, please visit www.digico.org.
