Country music star Josh Turner is currently touring the United States and Canada
with a HARMAN Soundcraft Vi3000 digital console. Digital Console Rental of
Nashville, Tennessee is supplying the 36-fader unit, production manager and FOH
engineer Jerry Slone at the helm.
Slone discovered the Vi3000 in February, during rehearsals for Turner’s spring tour.
“I went to [Digital Console Rental’s owner] Howard Jones’ warehouse and checked it
out,’ Slone said. “We decided to use it alongside our existing console during
rehearsals. The first couple of days, I poked around the desk, built a mix and got
familiar with it. DCR’s Operations Manager, Chris Wilhelm was a huge help in me
getting acquainted with the new mixing format. By the fourth day, I had completely
powered off the previous console and I haven’t used it since!’
Slone notes the Vi3000’s ease of use and intuitive operation as key advantages—in
fact, the board was almost too easy to use at first. “My trouble in the beginning was
when I needed to find something, I expected I would need to click a mouse and dig
through a bunch of menus, as is the case with other consoles,’ he said.
“The sound quality is extremely analog in nature. The Vi3000 has all the advantages
of digital, but has a very analog vibe to it.’
Slone is also using Realtime Rack, which provides industry-standard UAD studio
plug-ins to the Soundcraft platform. “Realtime Rack has been phenomenal, I’ve
been using it on drums, bass, Josh’s vocal, steel and slide guitars, and fiddle,’
Slone said. “The gear required for the same analog effects equipment would be
massive and the plug-ins sound terrific. That’s not to knock the onboard
processing. I’m using a fair amount of the onboard compressors and gates in
conjunction with the Realtime Rack plug-ins. Also the onboard Lexicon effects
processors are fantastic.’
For more information on Digital Console Rental, please visit
www.digitalconsolerental.com.
