German band Söhne Mannheims recently marked their 20th anniversary with two sold-out shows in their hometown. Both show’s audio systems were supplied by TDA Rental, with a DiGiCo SD5 at FOH and two SD7s for monitors.
Roger Wagener has known the band for more than a decade, and has manned the FOH position for Söhne Mannheims for the past two-and-half years, using the SD5 from the moment it was available: ‘I use an SD5 with the Waves package onboard,’ he says. ‘It’s an amazing workhorse. DiGiCo has been my first choice since I did my first show with a D5 back in 2005 and I have done hundreds of shows with them since.
‘The SD7 is the ultimate monitor desk. We used two at monitors because we had to split band and singers pretty much 50:50 (there are 21 of them in total) in order to be able to offer everybody full support and attention.’
The FOH SD5 and one of the SD7s were connected on an optical loop, with the second SD7 connected via Madi to the first SD7 and the SD-Racks. ‘All-in-all, we had around 90 inputs including the audience and different talkback mics,’ Wagener concludes. ‘And it worked perfectly.’
Söhne Mannheims’ 2015 tour includes dates in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, where the DiGiCo SD5 and SD7s will continue to be an integral part of the show’s sound.
