French band M83 has been touring its brand of electro-pop – and its latest album,
Junk – around the world, playing festivals including Coachella in the US and
Glastonbury in the UK, as well as headlining at academy-sized venues, all to rave
reviews. Their audio system has been supplied by Clair Brothers since the band was
big enough to take one out, says Front of House engineer Robbie Barr, with a pair
DiGiCo SD10s now forming an indispensable part of the package.

Barr has been with the band since 2012, initially on playback / Ableton and now
mixing the show for the current album campaign, whilst monitor engineer Laura
Davis joined them this year. Both engineers have experience with DiGiCo consoles,
both are using an SD10 for the first time for the tour, and both have the latest
Stealth Core 2 software which, they say, is a game changer.

“M83’s sound requires a lot of detail and that was something I was finding hard to
achieve on other consoles, without resorting to stacks of plugins just to get the
initial tone,’ explains Barr. “I’d used an SD8 with a d&b system for a show at the
9:30 Club in Washington, DC mixing Ryn Weaver, and found that the console
reacted exactly how I wanted it to out of the box, just using the built-in channel
strip and DiGiTubes. So, once I heard that Davis was requesting an SD10 for this
tour, I did the same.’

Both Barr and Davis are using all 56 inputs on their SD-Racks.

“At my end, with channel doubling and FX returns, I’m running 83 channels in total,’
says Barr. “I love how flexible the layers on this console are. I have some channels
doubled so I can widen the guitars, etc., and being able to have those channels
hidden on another layer with a VCA in their place really keeps my workflow simple.
I also have DiGiTubes on my parallel drum buss, bass instrument busses and
guitars buss.

“As well as the SD-Rack’s 56 inputs, I am also using all eight channels on my local
inputs,’ adds Davis. “On the console itself, with FX returns, etc., I am using 76
inputs in total. I have 27 outputs on my SD-Rack – 20 channels of wireless IEMs,
four channels of hardwired IEMs, one for FOH shout return and two channels for
wedges and drum sub.’

Mixing M83 is challenging, the show being incredibly effect heavy on the vocals and
on the mix buss.

Both Barr and Davis are delighted with the support from the DiGiCo team.

“They’ve really taken great care of me,’ says Barr. “Upgrading to Stealth Core 2
had one or two head scratching moments with regards to Waves, but I had someone
on the phone immediately and the issue was resolved very quickly.’

“Mark Saunders and Dave Bigg have been really great with any questions we’ve
had,’ concludes Davis. “In fact, they’ve been great throughout the whole campaign.’