Supporting his Mercury Music Prize-winning album, Boy in Da Corner, British grime MC and rapper Dizzee Rascal hit UK arenas following a major comeback at London’s O2 with support from Eighth Day Sound.
‘This job can be hard enough without worrying about whether you’re in safe hands, supplier-wise,’ says Production Manager Tommy Sheals-Barrett of Back On Your Heads. ‘You get the best out of the artist (and the artist’s crew) when they have confidence in a production supplier.’
Choosing Eighth Day Sound and mixing Dizzee’s influential London hip-hop, is FOH engineer Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Sargeant: ‘Over the years, I’ve mastered some of Dizzee’s earlier album live tracks, so, my aim here was to bring consistency to the overall range of tracks spanning the 20th anniversary,’ he says.
‘Creating the right mix comes down to getting the best source, the best preamps, control surface and PA. With a DJ set-up, it’s about live mastering and making sure the signal path and source are the best they possibly can be.’
Sargeant chose Solid State Logic’s Live 100 for the main mix, while the DJ set-up goes via a Solid State Logic Fusion to add weight and tame the high frequencies. ‘Since the introduction of the SSL Live consoles I’ve loved their sound,’ Sargeant adds. ‘There’s a great-sounding preamp that reminds me of the Midas XL4 but within a digital control. In my mind, it’s the best-sounding live console out there.’
Vocals are processed with an Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor. ‘They’re so fast and transparent,’ Sargeant says. ‘I also add a very short reverb from a Bricasti M7 to soften and help sit the vocal. The vocals are also sent to a stem, which is used as a sidechain into the master bus multi-band compressor. It dips the mid-range pocket for the vocals to sit in the master mix, with the final mix going to the SSL Bus+. ‘The compressor keeps the vocals controlled and the dynamic EQ adds low-end punch which softens the high-mids, this gives an immense sound at 98 dB(A) and a wide stereo image with clear vocals. It’s about weight and hi-fidelity.’
The tour included some acoustically challenging venues, which were addressed with a d&b audiotechnik KSL line array. ‘From tailoring the PA system and making it work for our needs and our budget, Eighth Day provided a truly great service,’ Sargeant says. ‘For the venues we were playing in, the KSL was bang on the money. The subs deliver great-sounding bass and work so well for Dizzee’s music. The KSL itself covers well and has great clarity - I think this set-up is the best result we’ve ever achieved in these venues.’
Sargeant credits Systems Engineer Eddie O’Brien with the outcome: ‘Working closely on the system design with Eddie was key. d&b’s ArrayProcessing software is second to none and helps combat the room reflections, and Eddie provided a truly great service, from tailoring the system to making it work for our needs and budget.’
Monitor engineer Edd Slaney handles both monitors and the DJ set-up, inadvertently assuming the role of show caller: ‘For that reason, I’ve always asked for great techs to come with my kit. I need a second set of eyes while I’ve got my head in one system or another – Liam Halpin looked after me for this run and was awesome as always.’
Dizzee’s monitoring preference is for Shure PSM1000 IEMs with d&b M2 wedges, alongside Sennheiser 6000 Series RF mics. Slaney’s desk of choice is a DiGiCo SD5 due to its routing flexibility. ‘This show requires much more than our normal festival set-up in terms of comms and matrix requirements,’ he says. ‘The mixes for the performers on stage aren’t overly complex, so I’m able to use Dizzee’s tours to try out combinations of kit to establish what I do and don’t like.
‘Dizzee is also awesome,’he reflects. ‘He’s so driven, and knows exactly what he wants, but always approaches it positively and professionally; everything we do feels like collaboration.’
Sheals-Barrett adds: ‘Eighth Day Sound’s crew and kit are always great. I’ve enjoyed working with everyone in this touring team, so I’m pleased to have been involved.’
More: www.8thdaysound.com
