Tool Summer Tour Toolbox Incorporated DiGiCo SD8 For Monitors
August 2009
Tool announced dates for a summer tour that will take the Grammy-award winning band through cities in the U.S. and Canada—including headlining appearances at All Points West and Lollapalooza festivals. 8th Day Sound staff engineer, Stephen Curtain, has worked with the band since 2006’s “10,000 Days” tour, first as a systems tech and later as their monitor engineer. Although he’s worked with numerous DiGiCo desks previously, this is his first outing with a DiGiCo SD8.
“The first time I saw an SD8 was at 8th Day Sound,” he recalled. “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 a Yamaha PM5D. “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 DiGiCo’s. 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 7 mono mixes and 3 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.”
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Dave Webster at DiGiCo
Tel: +44 1372 845600
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IMAGES: STEPHEN CURTAIN - MONITORS
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The technology in the SD7 is light years ahead of any other product in the marketplace. With the proven DiGiCo touch interface, along with the built-in redundant engines, MADI ports, dynamic EQ and compression on every channel, 64 integrated stereo effects, a routing pool of 1392 connections and cool video interface, the SD7 is a world class console in every respect.
Jack Boessneck - Eighth Day Sound
I had been toying with getting a D5. We wanted something that was able to offer more than 48 channels and that came as a complete package so we did not have to run around making up input and multi racks. DiGiCo could provide all of that and more.
Kevin Glover - Sound Stylists
We assembled, tested and put into operation almost every make and model of digital console both as part of our search for a monitor desk 4 years ago, and our search for a new FOH console this year. After many meetings and rounds of emails, we were able to reach a consensus among our decision-making body and that consensus was DiGiCo.
Jens McVoy - Wolftrap
The DiGiCo D5T package is a significant part of the owner-specified equipment that we are installing
Tom Young - Altels Project Engineer
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