Taking his brand of Colombian ‘Reggaeton’ on the road for the Energia world tour, Latin Grammy Award-winning J Balvin is accompanied by FOH engineer John Buitrago – who has chosen a DiGiCo SD10 for the mix.

With a consistently expanding input list from tour to tour, Balvin needs ensure all demands are catered for: ‘I’ve been using a DiGiCo SD10 and SD Rack for the last two years wherever I’ve been in the world,’ he explains. ‘So using it for the current tour, with the new requirements I have for the input list, was pretty easy. In fact, after a quick virtual soundcheck, I ran the whole show into Snapshots and boom, I was ready to go.’

Buitrago is using a 56-channel configuration including instrument channels, vocal mics, guest vocals, DJ supports and talkbacks, with the console’s AES outputs used for the main PA and the analogue outputs of the SD Rack for comms between FOH, techs, lighting and video.

‘The sound quality of any DiGiCo, plus the amazing headroom, is pretty easy to recognise,’ he says. ‘I chose the SD10 because it has the DiGiCo sound I love and everything else about it is just right for my show.’

Buitrago has also been making good use of a DiGiCo/Waves SoundGrid on the tour: ‘I’m a really big fan of the DiGiCo and SoundGrid interaction; the way I can get everything connected through the Soundgrid Network,’ he adds. ‘It streamlines access and controls so well.’

As the tour rolls on with the SD10 in the front line, technical support is equally important: ‘We have access to the most amazing team at DiGiCo,’ Buitrago says. ‘From Fernando Delgado and Jaap Pronk from DiGiCo, to Andres Gomez from Codiscos Audio, DiGiCo’s distributor in Colombia. They are all amazing and really smart guys.’

J Balvin is set to continue his tour throughout Central and South America this November, with Balvin and his SD10 making sure that each night sounds as good as the last.

More: www.digico.org