DiGiCo provides flexibility for Rag’N’Bone Man

Both Sadler and Tinsley say that the SD7s are not a necessity for the tour, with input counts that could be handled by smaller consoles in the range, but they are very

happy with the luxury the SD7 affords. The choice of DiGiCo, however, has specific reasons behind it.

With six musicians on stage – Rory, AKA Rag’N’Bone Man, and five backing musicians – a full drum kit, two bass inputs, six electric guitars plus an acoustic, a Nord keyboard, Rhodes piano, a Leslie and a playback system, Sadler and Tinsley can operate with one SD Rack each and the system is far from stretched.

At Front of House, Sadler has 40 inputs and two on-board effects. This does not use the SD7 to capacity, but makes life easier and has the benefit that files can be transferred to any other DiGiCo consoles. This is the main reason for the choice, as it provides flexibility in places, such as festivals, where they are not able to take in their own consoles.

“I’m still relatively new to this tour and having a DiGiCo has made the transition easy for me,” says Sadler. “I’m getting to know the sound of the band without getting hung up on the technical aspects; the DiGiCo lets me focus on mixing and not getting myself lost inside a new console. I enjoy how it sounds, too; it’s very natural and the Dynamic EQ available onboard the console means that third party plugins aren’t needed.”

“I’d originally requested an SD10, as my previous console didn’t have enough busses to handle the building line up and output count,” says Tinsley. “The SD10 seemed like the perfect console for the job, but there wasn’t one available at the time, so I was blessed with being given the SD7 and it has stuck since.”

Tinsley likes the power of the SD7’s macros and the number available has helped a lot with what, he says, seems like simple tasks, such as being able to hit a button and talk to any single member of the band to have a conversation on stage without disrupting other band members.

“Using Control Groups to physically change input send levels to mixes is great for keeping a level consistency between songs and to be sure you never overload inputs to IEMs,” he says. “For me, the Snapshots page is by far the easiest to use, giving me great flexibility when working with Scenes, and the metering above each screen is insanely useful for staying on top of your gain structure.”