Horsepower To Spare
While addressing the issue of having only one console for both the house and monitors, Pizzo also enlisted the aid of SQ4You, an app which allows up to eight performers onstage to control their own monitor mixes from an Android or iOS device.
“Now we have the horsepower to do everything we need to do plus give the musicians control over what they hear all from a single control surface,” he reports. “We also have the ability to setup a secondary monitor mix layer for the in-ear mixes some of our bands use. Often, these IEM (in-ear monitoring) mixes are not post-fader. In the past the musicians may not have heard our fader pushes in their ears, but they’d hear the channel EQ and compressor changes we’d make, which could be distracting. With the SQ-7 we can create another layer that’s separate and on top just for their ears, thereby giving them a custom mix that’s completely separate from the house.”
With 33 faders now available at each stage, each operator can spread out further on their console. Channels and mixes can be dragged and dropped to any strip on the board with customizable color-coding and naming. Layers start at the top with inputs coming from the left for drums, bass, guitars, tracks, keys, and vocals, and then move back to center from the right with effects returns and DCA masters.
Moving down a layer, you’ll find secondary VCAs, aux masters, matrixes, and other things that don’t get touched that often. Soft keys on each board are used for groups, delay taps, and VCA mutes, while rotary controls have been given over to effects and compressor parameter changes. Initially every operator started with the same basic workflow configuration. Before long, however, each started adding their own custom touches.
Picking Up The Pace
Onstage patching is performed via A&H DX168 stage box expanders, each of which offers 16 XLR inputs and eight XLR outputs. “Changeovers are now faster than ever,” Pizzo says. “The stage techs simply patch whatever is needed for an act, and then a single Ethernet cable carries the signals over to the house mix position. It can’t get much simpler and quicker than that.”
Beyond fulfilling his role as production manager for the street, he also books the nightly talent for each of the stages. Headliners this summer will include Sugar Ray, Collective Soul, and Cheap Trick. Local talent includes bands Pizzo put together himself expressly for the stages such as a genre-jumping rock group called Alter Ego, and Crush. The Tony Marques Band is another showcase of local talent that blurs the lines between country and rock.
“The consoles have done much more than improve our workflow,” Pizzo relates on a final note. “The sonic quality we obtained makes it sound like we’ve upgraded the loudspeakers again. On the audience side that has translated into us drawing larger crowds quicker and having them stay longer.
“Third Street is our de facto ‘main’ stage, and on weekends we can have 5,000 people out there, on Tuesdays around 2,000. The change has made a difference, and now we can accommodate anything we want to do.”