Busted vs McFly, a battle of the bands, with a

It is a mash-up in every sense of the word. Duelling with them are four engineers and four DiGiCo Quantum 338 consoles. Ed's John is the front-of-house engineer for McFly, with Mike Osman at the monitor position. Busted has Greg Coates on monitors and Steve Kerry at the front of house position. Keeping a show like this on track requires full, free-flowing communication and a host of features accessible instantly. John explains why only DiGiCo transparency and its shared communication will do the job.

When you've got four engineers on the tour, it brings the best out of all of us, he says. You look over at the engineer next to you and think, that sounds pretty good, I'd better up my game a little bit! We're definitely getting the best out of the engineers and out of the equipment. There are four consoles, with three-stage racks, and we're all in a loop. All our consoles are connected, because the monitor engineers need all the Busted inputs, as well as all the McFly ones. We're doing recordings, too, so I need to take some stuff from the Busted desk to record, and vice versa. Without the optical loop, it wouldn't be as simple to share all that data together.

The staging is also unique, with the bands performing on a diamond-shaped stage thrust into the audience. This has its benefits and challenges. The bands are in front of the PA for large portions of the show, making DiGiCo's Mustard Source Expander a key feature for both the monitor and front of house engineers for both bands.

The PA being behind the band has its problems, especially for arena-sized gigs where we're using big and high-powered loudspeaker systems, John continues. I'm using a lot of the Mustard Source Expander (MSE); I've never really used it before, because I don't often have microphones in front of speakers, and it's a lifesaver! It's not working too hard, but it's just doing enough to give me the volume we need before feedback, without having to really EQ the sound. If I turn it off, the PA starts to ring quite quickly. It's working great.

Another part of the DiGiCo family of products that John appreciates is the Fourier transform.engine. John was an early adopter of the technology and, as he continues, being part of the early development of a product is very rewarding.

I was using the very first version of the transform.engine, which was a bit glitchy, but we got through the tour, he recalls. Elliot at Fourier was really helpful, a new piece of equipment is always going to do that, but I always like being involved from day one on these sorts of devices to try and help develop it. It's nice to be on there at ground level and get some of your ideas included. It's only going to get bigger and more popular as a format.

Alongside his Quantum 338, Osman is running KLANG.konductor for McFly, taking advantage of the large channel count with 100 inputs going via MADI directly from his console. He is running the latest version, KLANG 5.7, so he can keep an eye on things via an external screen and use Channel Focus, a new feature that enables engineers to focus on individual channels, making 3D panning adjustments faster and even more precise. For him, KLANG represents a huge step forward in monitor mixing.

It's a game changer, probably the biggest since we all moved from wedges to in-ears, he expands. With the staging, I like to keep everything nice and wide, we have four shotgun ambient mics, which give the band a big spatial audience experience. KLANG stops that element getting in the way of the rest of the mix and clouding the vocals, it's amazing. I'm the opposite of Ed [John]. I like to hang back with new technology, so I've only been using KLANG for a year or so. When the version 17 update came out, with all the auto channel-mapping, I jumped on it, and every artist I've used it with since has loved it.

With so many variables to pull together each night, Coates is keen to keep his Busted monitor workflow streamlined. With Busted and McFly sharing so much information between consoles, the show files are complex, especially in terms of communication. Thanks to the power of the Quantum processing, their consoles can handle it all with ease. For him, DiGiCo console provides everything he needs at his fingertips in a reliable format that simply works every time, so there is no need to add any outboard, as he continues.

The Quantum 338 is incredibly powerful for routing and, with two acts combined for one show, is pretty comms-heavy, he says. I'm purely in-the-box; everything I use is in the console. Since the Quantum MSE updates, I don't really feel the need to have to use anything external; the console now does absolutely everything I need it to do. With the various flavours of Mustard Processing, you've got an incredibly powerful set of tonal shaping at your fingertips. I can get everything I need out of the console itself.

Something that all these engineers have in common is the need to set up and dismantle in a quick and effective way. Knowing that their consoles will work every time means that they can get on with mixing this epic show without worrying about how it will all happen. It is a seamless connection between artists and engineers which, as Coates concludes, delivers the best experience for everyone at the gig: artists, engineers and audience.

The DiGiCo Quantum 338 is very, very powerful in terms of customisation and programmability, certainly for monitors. Currently, I don't think there's anything else out there that's as powerful in terms of programmability. Once you've built your show and your files are in good order, it kind of makes the job a doddle.

High-res photos available here.

Press Contacts:

Maria Fiorellino at DiGiCo

Tel: +44 1372 845600

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