Paloma Fai Graces the Apollo with DiGiCo

Paloma Faith Graces The Apollo With DiGiCo Posted: February 2013 | For Immediate Release

Since breaking into the UK music scene in 2009 with three top 20 singles, Paloma Faith has had two platinum-selling albums; the latter, Fall to Grace, reached number two in the UK Album Charts, and led to several 2011 BRIT Award nominations. Currently in the midst of an extensive UK tour, her FOH engineer, Huw Richards, is working from a DiGiCo SD10 with SD Rack, and its all going rather well...

I instantly liked DiGiCo the minute I used one of their consoles, Richards admits, during soundcheck at Londons Hammersmith Apollo. Whatever the model, youre getting real value. Be it the great EQ, the excellent pre-amps - the list goes on everything youre working with is always the same quality as the flagship SD7, which you really cant argue with.

Richards likes the SD10 for its functionality, user interface, and overall sound quality.

DiGiCo is always great for channel count; Im running 54 channels here on my SD10, and whats also really handy is having 12 faders in each fader bank rather than eight, particularly so when working with drums, he enthuses. For example, on this show I have several additional snares and kicks, so there are a lot of channels, yet I can still pack the whole kit into one bank, which is absolutely ideal. I then have another bank for all of the percussion and effects. It works really nicely, because everything is there in front of you.

Very much a hands-on engineer, Richards insists that the SD10 allows him to work pretty much as I would with an analogue desk, which certainly suits his mixing style.

When I mix, its like Im playing an instrument, really I like to be able to move around the console, he explains. The SD10 allows me to do that; I only end up using snapshots and the mutes. The inbuilt effects are good, too; I am using a couple of reverbs on this gig on the drum kit, then some delays on the vocals as well as various other bits and pieces, as theres a lot happening on stage.

Richards is also a big Waves fan, and for this tour, has borrowed a PuigChild and Maxx BCL units from audio provider, SSE Audio.

SSE has provided me with some Waves hardware, he smiles, turning to the outboard rack. The PuigChild is superb for Palomas vocals, as she has quite a peaky mid range - it really fattens the vocal; and I use the Maxx BCL across the PA.

Audio is sent via AES from the SD10 into two Lake processors (located at FOH) and then its all fibre to stage left, according to Faiths system tech, SSE Audios own Perttu Korteniemi.

From there, it breaks down to Cat5 to the stage Lakes, then it goes AES to the amplifiers, so when the microphone hits the DiGiCo SD rack on stage, it doesnt go back to analogue until the speaker cables, he explains. This method keeps it all simple: theres no setting up of gains and no hiss, its all nice and clean, so when I open up the PA, there is no interference whatsoever.

Just a few days after this show, Faith went on to perform at the BAFTAs in Covent Gardens Royal Opera House.

Her tour runs until the beginning of July, where she will perform at T in the Park festival in Scotland.

Press Contacts:

David Webster at DiGiCo

Tel: +44 1372 845600

Email:webby@digiconsoles.com

Web: www.digico.org

Sarah James at Gasoline Media

Tel: +44 1372 471472

Email: info@gasolinemedia.com

Web: www.gasolinemedia.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/sarah_gasoline

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