An icon in Hong Kong’s popular culture as the God of Songs, singer and actor Jacky Cheung kicked off his latest tour at The Venetian Macao Cotai Arena in Macau in June. The Jacky Cheung 60+ Concert Tour not only marks the 10th solo concert tour of his career but also the superstar’s first large-scale event after his 60th birthday. Extending into 2024, it has already broken records by selling more than 109,000 tickets for the Cotai Arena and hosting 11 shows at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
The DiGiCo Quantum5 consoles and a Klang immersive monitor system for the tour were provided by Rightway Audio Consultants (RAC), DiGiCo’s official distributor in China.
At the project’s outset, the RAC team offered support in system design, set-up, and decisions about the mixing console to be used, as well as the connectivity of the Klang system. It was during this phase that they also recommended use of the Quantum5, which were employed for both FOH and monitors, with the latter benefitting from DiGiCo’s integration with Klang.
The 15,000-capacity Cotai Arena is the largest single indoor event venue in Macau and regularly hosts international televised awards shows and concerts by major artists including Mariah Carey and Shawn Mendes. It is one of the best-equipped integrated indoor multi-purpose exhibition and performance venues in Asia. For the , the set design included a thrust stage, which provided a clear view of the stage for the audience and departed from previous concerts where the band were concealed. The RAC team set up a four-storey platform on the main stage for a 53-piece orchestra.
‘The performance included a large-scale orchestra, with each instrument individually picked out by a large number of microphones. Each musician required a dedicated monitor mix capable of being controlled by themselves,’ says Rightway Audio Consultants System Engineer, Pan Weijie. ‘This necessitated monitor engineer, Mike Wong, deploying a substantial number of output buses, plus six groups of Madi outputs. The Quantum5 proved to be the ideal console for effectively managing these complexities, with a total of 175 inputs and 150 outputs being used.’
Weijie notes that having so many musicians on stage simultaneously requires them to not only hear their own instruments, but also the other instruments. ‘This underscores the critical importance of an effective monitoring system,’ he explains. ‘That is why we employed 55 Klang:kontrollers and five Klang:konductors, creating an immersive personal monitoring system for the orchestra members. This is the first use of such a large Klang system in the Asia-Pacific region.
‘This results in heightened clarity for each instrument’s sound,’ Weijie adds. ‘It also helped to reduce the players’ hearing fatigue and the need for high monitoring levels, thereby significantly improving hearing protection.’
In addition, the objects could be visualised in the Klang:app interface, enabling intuitive yet precise positioning of instruments by dragging the icons, offering the musicians flexibility in shaping the sound within their individual IEMs.
RAC Senior System Engineer Li Wenxi, was on hand for monitoring support during the Cotai Arena performance,s and was pleased with the Quantum 5’s performance.
‘I love its reliability and security,’ he says. ‘The Quantum5 facilitates interface control and information interaction between DiGiCo and Klang, granting musicians greater room for their personal mixes. Boasting over 250 channels, it can satisfy the needs of musicians and singers at the same time.
‘After several concerts, the engineers became very proficient with the Quantum5s. Thanks to the powerful DiGiCo and Klang setup and its intuitive interface, we have established a highly efficient solution which has worked exceptionally for the Jacky Cheung 60+ Concert Tour.’
See also:
Song God’s Classic Tour
