CHICAGO — Stephen Curtain, staff engineer for 8th Day Sound, has worked with Tool since the band’s 10,000 Days tour in 2006, and while he’s used DiGiCo desks previously, this is his first outing with a DiGiCo SD8 for the band’s summer tour, which included headlining spots at the All Points West and Lollapalooza festivals. “The first time I saw an SD8 was at 8th Day Sound,” he said. “We had one in for a demo with a few of the guys from DiGiCo. The biggest thing to me was how little EQ I actually needed to use as compared to other mixing boards—digital or analog.”
Back in 2006, when he took the Tool gig over from another engineer, Curtain had been mixing on another brand of console.
“I knew I wanted to make the switch to a DiGiCo, and now just happened to be that time. I have been around just about every digital console out there over the past few years, and I always seem to gravitate towards the DiGiCos. In short, the SD8 fit the tour’s budget and my requirements for what my monitor desk needed to do.”
On this tour, there are approximately 40 inputs for drums, bass, guitar, vocals and a few FX returns from stage. Curtain’s also got two in-ear mixes for vocalist Maynard James Keenan (the band is all on wedges) and a tech mix. Plus, he’s using two internal reverbs and one external chorus for a total of seven mono mixes and three stereo mixes.
“I typically stick to using the parametric EQ on both inputs and outputs, but when I do need to use the graphic EQ faders, it makes things go a bit quicker having the detent. It also gives you peace of mind knowing that you’re back at zero without having to watch some little numbers.”
Overall, Curtain says the feature he’s most impressed with is the sound. “I’m actually using less EQ on everything. The dynamics are clean and react the way they should. A few of the band members are really into the technology and get excited about what I’m using. For the most part though, they are just happy with a good, consistent sound and I think we’ve achieved that for this band and this tour.”
For more information, please visit www.digico.org.
