Engineers Turn To DiGiCo Firepower

The Busted vs McFly tour is proving far from a standard co-headline run, with both bands renowned for high-energy performances and going head-to-head on stage each night.

The concept is a full mash-up, not only for the artists but also for the crew — with four engineers operating four DiGiCo Quantum 338 consoles to keep the production locked together.

Ed's John serves as front of house engineer for McFly, with Mike Osman on monitors, while Busted's mixes are handled by Greg Coates at monitors and Steve Kerry at front of house. With both acts sharing the stage — and large parts of the show — communication and instantly accessible functionality are critical. John says this is precisely why DiGiCo's transparency and shared connectivity are essential.

"When you've got four engineers on the tour, it brings the best out of all of us," he said. "You look over at the engineer next to you and think, that sounds pretty good, I'd better up my game a little bit! We're definitely getting the best out of the engineers and out of the equipment. There are four consoles, with three-stage racks and we're all in a loop. All our consoles are connected, because the monitor engineers need all the Busted inputs, as well as all the McFly ones. We're doing recordings, too, so I need to take some stuff from the Busted desk to record, and vice-versa. Without the optical loop, it wouldn't be as simple to share all that data together."

The staging adds another layer of complexity. The two bands perform on a diamond-shaped thrust extending into the crowd, placing musicians in front of the PA for significant portions of the set. DiGiCo's Mustard Source Expander has become a critical tool for both FOH and monitor positions.

"The PA being behind the band has its problems, especially for arena sized gigs where we’re using big and high-powered loudspeaker systems," John continued. "I'm using a lot of the Mustard Source Expander (MSE); I've never really used it before, because I don't often have microphones in front of speakers and it’s a life saver! It's not working too hard, but it's just doing enough to give me the volume we need before feedback, without having to really EQ the sound. If I turn it off, the PA starts to ring quite quickly. It's working great."

John is also benefiting from DiGiCo’s Fourier transform.engine, having been involved since its earliest iteration.

"I was using the very first version of the transform.engine, which was a bit glitchy, but we got through the tour," he recalled. "Elliot at Fourier was really helpful, a new piece of equipment is always going to do that, but I always like being involved from day one on these sorts of devices to try and help develop it. It's nice to be on there at ground level and get some of your ideas included. It’s only going to get bigger and more popular as a format."

Over at monitors for McFly, Osman is running KLANG.konductor alongside his Quantum 338, feeding 100 inputs via MADI. Using the latest KLANG 5.7 software, he is taking advantage of Channel Focus and improved visualisation — and says 3D monitoring has transformed his workflow.

"It's a game changer, probably the biggest since we all moved from wedges to in-ears," he expands. "With the staging, I like to keep everything nice and wide, we have four shotgun ambient mics which give the band a big spatial audience experience. KLANG stops that element getting in the way of the rest of the mix and clouding the vocals, it's amazing. I'm the opposite of Ed [John]. I like to hang back with new technology, so I've only been using KLANG for a year or so. When the version 17 update came out, with all the auto channel-mapping I jumped on it, and every artist I’ve used it with since has loved it."

With the show's shared inputs and communications requirements, Coates keeps his Busted monitor mix streamlined, relying entirely on the Quantum platform's internal toolset.

"The Quantum 338 is incredibly powerful for routing and, with two acts combined for one show, is pretty comms heavy," he said. "I'm purely in-the-box; everything I use is in the console. Since the Quantum MSE updates, I don't really feel the need to have to use anything external, the console now does absolutely everything I need it to do. With the various flavours of Mustard Processing, you've got an incredibly powerful set of tonal shaping at your fingertips. I can get everything I need out of the console itself."

With fast load-ins and tear-downs required each night, all four engineers praise the reliability of the DiGiCo ecosystem, allowing them to focus on delivering a seamless experience — both for performers and the audience.

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