Swedish “melodic death metal” band Arch Enemy is currently touring North America with a Harman Professional Soundcraft Vi6 digital console at front of house.
According to the band’s front of house engineer Hagen Weigel, Arch Enemy’s shows are dynamic and full of energy and theatrics. “Arch Enemy is a band that has beautiful melodies arranged around very intricate drumming, which is mixed with heavy shredding guitars and spiced up with brutal growling to form a nice mélange that feels like a kick in the face,” he notes.
While “melodic death metal” might seem like an oxymoron, it is in fact a popular sub-genre that is nonetheless quite challenging to mix. “There are heavily distorted guitars that are also wide, open, and melodic which mix with very fast double kick drum playing,” Weigel explains. “Frequency differentiation is key to the mix—getting all of the instruments to sit and work around each other. I need to have clarity and separation and still be able to put [lead singer] Alissa’s voice out in front. I’m always looking for the result to be something that is beautiful and brutal at the same time.”
In his search for a digital console for this tour, Weigel placed a priority on reliability. “You can have the best-sounding, most feature-packed desk, but when it crashes in front of 30,000 people at a festival none of that matters,” he says. “What Soundcraft has done with the Vi6 is create an incredibly stable, ergonomic console that still has all of the features that I am looking for.”
Those features, in turn, are multiple: “In order to fulfill my vision of what the Arch Enemy sound should be I need really good dynamics—fast responding gates, compressors that are smooth and predictable in behavior, EQs that are responsive and accepts boosts well, and effects engines that are able to give me reverbs that range from ‘80s plate sounds to modern large reverbs.”
For all these reasons, Weigel chose the Vi6 “From metal to orchestral and symphonic music, Vi consoles are able to translate the vision you have for your mix in your head to the PA,” he concludes. “It is incredibly reliable and consistent and sounds beautiful.”
