Building on their 2005 debut album Employment, the Kaiser Chiefs have achieved international success touring Europe and the North America. Today, this finds sound engineer Chris Leckie at one of the band’s two Soundcraft Vi Series consoles.

Back in 2007, as they prepared for their largest and most ambitious arena tour to date, their previous engineer gave up his post aallowing Leckie to step in.

Able to watch the Soundcraft Vi6 console that toured with them to handle opening acts, he found himself experiencing console envy: ‘I quickly realised I needed to switch allegiances,’ he says.

During the European leg of the current tour, Leckie and monitor engineer Ilias Andrianatos have been using the Vi6 – now their console of choice. However, during the preceding North American leg, it was not logistically practical to transport the Vi6 around the country. ‘Harman and Soundcraft were helpful in supplying a pair of the more compact Vi1 consoles to be used by me and our monitor engineer. This allowed us to retain most of the facilities available to us on our Vi6, and keep some degree of consistency from show to show.’

And that’s not so east with the Kaiser Chiefs: ‘They don’t play to a click track, which adds difficulty to my job,’ Leckie reports. ‘There isn’t a rack of equipment sending me identical programme material at the same level every night, and if I’m going to keep a handle on the somewhat unpredictable, wriggling beast that is a Kaiser show, I need to see what is going on at all times and have access to everything as quickly as I would on an analogue board. Soundcraft and the Vi Series does that, and at any point I can see EQ, gates, compression and effects on every channel, rather than having to negotiate my way through multiple tiers and screens.

‘I also need a console that is easy and quick to use, and on top of everything, it needs to sound good…

‘With each software update the desk gets better, with sensible and useful additions that continue to make my job easier and more enjoyable. The new user layers allow me to arrange faders into convenient locations for specific songs. This has been a revelation…

‘The quality of EQ and dynamics of the Vi console is superb as well. At any time, Ricky Wilson [vocals] can pick up any of the three different vocal microphones at his disposal and I have to maintain the intelligibility and consistency when he climbs up in the front of the PA or wherever he runs around.’

More: www.soundcraft.com