With a new album, Saturn’s Pattern, fresly released, Paul Weller is set to tour the US before returning to Europe for the summer festival season. For both legs of the tour, live monitor engineer Samuel Manigley a Soundcraft Vi6 digital mixing console, with SSE Hire supplying the board.

Weller’s current touring band is comprised of six supporting musicians, with a second drum kit recently added to the instrumentation. ‘Paul Weller’s concerts are sensational and he has such a varied back catalogue of songs, from great guitar tracks like ‘Peacock Suit’ to beautiful piano-driven tunes like ‘You Do Something to Me,’ Manigley says.

Along with the Vi6, Manigley has a 64-channel Soundcraft Vi Stagebox, plus a Compact Stagebox for additional inputs. ‘It’s 64 inputs just from the band on stage, so we needed some extra room and the Stageboxes have worked out great,’ he says.

Manigley became familiar with the Vi Series consoles while mixing monitors for Courtney Love’s Academy tour. He found features like the Vistonics II control interface and FaderGlow fader illumination technology set the Vi consoles apart from other desks. ‘We used in-house consoles everywhere we played and a lot of these academies had Vi4 or Vi6 desks,’ he says. ‘The ease of use with those desks is incredible and the way they’re laid out, you see exactly what you need right in front of you. So I pushed hard for us to get a Vi6 for this tour.

‘The Vi consoles give you everything you need in a digital desk, but they also hold massive analog principle – everything is in a linear format and very intuitive,’ he adds. ‘I’m hoping to be able to use a Vi3000 later this year and as much as I love the Vi6, I know the Vi3000 will be even better.’

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