Touring Industry Continues to Rely on DiGiCo’s SD Series

Once again evidenced by the fact that eight of last year’s top ten highest-grossing tours carried SD Series consoles for FOH, monitors, or both, many of the world’s premier concert sound companies are reporting that DiGiCo desks are still their “first choice” for handling the audio needs of the most complex and challenging touring productions.

DiGiCo SD7

According to Brent Dannen, VER Executive Director, Audio, whose company has had 14 SD7s, 19 SD10s, 12 SD9s, one SD11i, two S21s, and 47 SD-Racks out on the road so far this year, “We continually invest in new technology for our clients and that always includes a range of DiGiCos. Our clients frequently spec DiGiCos for their most demanding projects, and we have yet to come across a technical challenge that couldn’t be solved by a console in their line.”

Likewise, Eighth Day Sound’s 2016 tours have been well equipped with over 40 SD Series consoles and more than 60 SD Series racks, to which Chief Operations Officer Jason Kirschnick notes, “We rarely suggest what consoles to use on projects. When we do, we usually recommend DiGiCo due to the unmatched versatility and options offered with buss counts, input channels and routing, along with the excellent sound quality. The market drives which consoles are popular and requested. We respond to the market and supply what is asked of us, which right now is dominated hands-down by DiGiCo.”

Rat Sound Systems is yet another example of an SR company that has sent SD Series consoles out on a number of very successful tours in the past six months, including Ben Harper, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and AWOLNATION.

DiGiCo’s presence on top tours is certainly more the rule than the exception, with one touring company in particular citing that it has had SD Series desks out on more than 30 tours this year.

“In addition to delivering pristine sound, unmatched routing flexibility, highly intuitive ease of use and unparalleled customer service, certainly one of the keys to DiGiCo’s success in the high-end global touring market has been that all of our consoles are what we like to call ‘future-proof’,” points out Group One Ltd’s Matt Larson, US national sales manager for the brand. “Because we constantly make firmware updates available — such as our new Stealth Core 2 system, which represents an absolutely massive upgrade to nearly all of our SD Series desks — even consoles that were purchased several years ago now have the ability be absolutely state-of-the-art when compared to what the rest of the industry is doing. This represents a huge return on investment for our clients, as they’re not having to purchase new hardware every few years to stay on the top of their game.”