Monitor engineer Chris Fillery and Front of House engineer Trevor Coppen chose an
SD11i and SD10 respectively, supplied by audio rental company Eighth Day Sound,
for Grammy Award winning American rock band Cage The Elephant’s recent
European tour. Each engineer had different reasons for choosing their console and
both are delighted with their decision.

Fillery and Coppen are both familiar with DiGiCo consoles and Fillery had used the
already compact SD9 for the US leg of the tour. However, for the European leg they
were travelling with just one bus and one trailer, so he decided to switch to an
SD11i. He has found its size perfect for transportation and for fitting into any
venue. Coppen, meanwhile, based his choice on versatility, international
availability, ease of multitrack recording, Waves integration and, he says, most
importantly, sound.

At FOH, Coppen has 40 inputs from the stage plus two additional large diaphragm
condenser mic inputs in to SD-Mini Rack at FOH. Depending on the song, with
effects returns and ambient house mics routed to recording, he has up to 62 inputs.

“I have a stereo Control Group with external Buss Compressor inserted and routed
to three stereo Matrix pairs. This allows me to listen to the stereo mix and still be
able to mute outputs. For stereo matrix pairs, I have one AES to house drive for the
PA, an additional (spare) stereo pair for secondary output, a third stereo output
with audience mics mixed in for a two-track 48kHz nightly recording into a Tascam
USB recorder,’ says Coppen.

“I also have three mono Matrix outputs with the optional zone outputs I commonly
use for large clubs and theatres, i.e., stage fill speakers, delay speakers and
hearing assist. Additional Control Groups include drums, guitars, keyboards and
vocals, where I’m also using Waves plug-ins. I use a total of 12 Auxes for effects.
Not all are used in every song and depend on the Snapshot. I use local outputs from
the console to time aligned near field EAW RSX89 monitors, which are used all day
for line check, sound check, PFL during the show, and virtual mixing via Waves
Live. I also have eight external inserts; stereo buss compressor over the whole
mix, four vocal pre-amps/compression, a snare insert and a bass DI insert,’ he
says.

This was both engineer’s first time using Eighth Day Sound, with VER having
supplied equipment for the US leg.

“VER have been really great, their equipment is always pristine,’ Fillery says.
“We’re super happy with the service from Eighth Day and would definitely use them
again and the DiGiCo team has also been very helpful. I visited them with a
multitrack and I was setup with a console and everything I needed to build a show
file. On the couple of occasions I’ve had to use the emergency service, that’s been
good, too.’