Soundcraft Vi6 on the Arctic Monkeys world tour

The English band Arctic Monkeys incorporates a Harman Soundcraft Vi6 digital mixing console to its next world tour that will pass through our country -Madrid and Barcelona- to present his fourth studio album.

The British group Arctic Monkeys will return to the Spanish stage to present their fourth studio album, Suck It And See, he 27 January at the Palacio de los Deportes in Madrid and the 28 January at the Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona. on this tour, Indie rock band is going to use a Soundcraft Vi6 digital mixing console from Harman, brand distributed in Spain by Earpro.

The Soundcraft Vi6 console has been designed based on the proven reliability of
Vista and On-Air table series 3000, they study. It should be noted that it uses a
Vistonics user interface update (Vistonics II), which allows the technician-operator
use the table even more intuitively. The Vistonics II interface uses the same type of TFT color “touch screen” monitor., with rotary controls and integral glass-mounted switches to provide a control system: “what you see is what you control”.

With a stylized and modern design, with a compact size (a much smaller profile than most large format digital tables) and very simple operation, Soundcraft assures that in about 10 seconds the user will feel familiar with the table.
The Soundcraft Vi6 table has 64 input channels, distributed in two layers of 32
control faders, of course, motorized. These channels can be assigned to 32 Departures
(in addition to stereo and mono mixing), with any combination of auxiliary buses and
group.

They can be configured up to 16 Matrix outputs from the 32 buses available. Each channel allows you to view all its functions at once, which avoids wasting time “browsing” through different menus or scrolling back and forth between different pages. The process of selecting a function for a given channel is as simple as touching the corresponding item on the touch screen and operating the controls and switches to produce the desired settings..

Simple use
Tim Fraleigh, audio technician at Firehouse Productions, thought from the beginning that the Vi6 console was the best console for this tour, thanks to its ease of use and intuitive interface. “It is really very comfortable to work with this table”, Fraleigh commented. “This table is simple and its touch screens make configuration adjustments very quick. Furthermore, Soundcraft has always been a very reliable brand.. Knowing the response and features of this table was very important, and thanks to its ease of use and our confidence in Soundcraft and Harman products, “We knew that this table was going to be the best choice and that everyone would be very satisfied.”

Monitor Engineer Will Doyle, which uses this console for front PA, the monitors and the side fills, has pointed out that the Vi6 responds wonderfully. “Although I have had the opportunity to work with digital tables several times, The thing I like most about the Vi6 is that it feels like you're working with an analog desk.. It's very easy to see at a glance what all the channels in each layer are doing. With its touch screen, “Everything is at your fingertips”, Doyle has remarked.

“The Vi6 is fantastic at multitasking,” continues Doyle.. With quick assignment function, you can always have the most important mixes in the encoders. This makes it easier to work with faders and be equally able to react quickly to any requirements on stage.. Having multiple touch screens means I can work on different channels at the same time. This feature is very relevant and makes everything very easy and fast for me.”

VCA set
According to Doyle, User layers are easy to configure and provide a lot of flexibility. “Make monitors for a rock group 4 Members, it does not mean that I have to push the mixer's capabilities too much, but rather I have started to incorporate VCAs into my user layer.”, Doyle pointed out. “So in addition to being able to hide all the superfluous channels, I just have to use one fader to turn up all the drums. The cool thing is that there is a set of discrete VCAs for each output., so if one finds themselves mixing a more complex group, can use up to 16 VCAs to control each mix instead of having to jump between layers to get to the 96 channels – more time looking at the stage instead of at the table. I use them mostly to keep the proportion between the vocals and their reverbs balanced.”.

For Doyle and the Arctic Monkeys, Stage monitoring has been very smooth thanks to the ease of use of the Vi6. “This table has many functions and perfect features for what we need; This makes our job easier day after day.”, resume Doyle.