Former Marillion singer and front man Fish has chosen Allen & Heath’s SQ-6 digital audio console for his current solo tour for front of house and monitor duties.
Despite leaving Marillion in 1988 to pursue his solo career, the Scottish singer and actor is widely known for his charismatic stage presence and his latest, extensive tour across Europe and the UK debuts his new solo album “Weltschmerz.”
Sound engineer for Fish, Steven Kent, uses the SQ-6 at front of house and an AR2412 and AR84 AudioRack on stage. The SQ-6 also houses a Waves Card for low latency external processing using Waves SoundGrid.
“The main challenge of the tour is that I’m mixing front of house and monitors from the same console,” explains Kent. “Some of the musicians are on in-ear monitors while others use traditional wedges, so on stage it’s quite a mixture of different sounds. Being able to manage that all from the compact SQ-6 is really incredible.”
“We have the ME-1 personal mixing system on stage which really takes half the work load off me”, Kent continues. “The musicians can adjust their mix easily without having to ask and can simply focus on having a great time on stage.”
Just before the tour, Kent installed the new DEEP compressor plugins on the console which he explains immediately made a huge difference to the bands live sound.
“I use the 16T compressor on the kick drum and bass and instantly everything sounds much more focused,” says Kent. “For vocals and acoustic guitars, I use the Peak Limiter 76. With the guitars, we really struggled to achieve the right sound with simple compression and EQ’ing, but with the added effects of the 76, the guitars were instantly tamed and sounded really nice. Another favorite is the Mighty Compressor, which we add to the drum groups as it creates huge transients and adds a certain punch to the mix.”
After the tour, the console will return to Fish’s personal studio where the SQ’s USB interface, DAW Control and monitoring features allow it to be used as a front end for a DAW.
