The recent Game Changer Tour by Namibian artist EES, a.k.a., Eric Sell and his supporting group, The Yes-Ja! Band, was supported by live sound engineer Florian Hackenberg-Keßler utilizing an Allen & Heath 48-channel SQ-5 surface for his mixes joined by two DX168 expanders in a portable, compact kit offering quick set up and strike.
Allen & Heath’s XCVI 96 kHz FPGA engine, the SQ-5 offers a range of integrated processing tools and FX so Hackenberg-Keßler didn’t need to use any external processing. “I am super-satisfied with everything the SQ-5 offers me. The compressors are great, and so are the reverbs,” he says. “I use a lot of the ADT Doubler, it simply works well. Another plus is the low latency, and 96 kHz operation. I use the USB interface at every show for multitrack recording. You don’t get all of this anywhere else in this price range.”
The 30 channels of the band are handled by the 17 faders of the SQ-5. Aaccording to Hackenberg-Keßler: “It works great because of the DCA spills. I get everything I need on one layer. It’s so flexible, you can layout the surface the way you want it so you don’t need any more faders. Brilliant.”
For onstage I/O, the two DX168 expanders are deployed with cabling kept to a minimum. “I daisy-chain the DX168s,” he explains. “I always order CAT cables locally, but I carry one myself as a backup. But the SQ consoles are great, they’ve taken every cable I’ve tried without problems, it has always been plug-and-play. The two DX168s are permanently installed in a case with cable harnesses to the respective musicians.”
All six members of The Yes-Ja! band rely on IEMs for monitoring, and the introduction of the SQ-5 has allowed the musicians to control their monitor mixes via the SQ4You app for iOS and Android. “It works extremely well,” notes Hackenberg-Keßler concludes. “We had two rehearsal days and everyone quickly got into the groove, the app is very easy to use.
“To be honest, I’m always fascinated by this console: everything just works and it sounds great. Allen & Heath has really made a mark with this thing.”