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After a five-year hiatus, the long-running quartet Phish reformed earlier this year, culminating in a new release (“Joy”) and subsequent 27-date national tour including headline spots at the Bonnaroo Music Festival and a four-night run at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver. They’ve also announced a 3-day Halloween weekend festival at the Empire Polo Fields in Indio, California. Billed as "Festival 8," the band will revive two of its most storied traditions: blending a weekend-long campout with its once-regular Halloween gig.
During the first leg of the tour, FOH engineer, Garry Brown made the decision to switch mid-stream to a DiGiCo SD7. And after a laborious, and exhaustive A/B comparison—in a mere 3 days—of his current console and the SD7, the decision was made. Aside from a brief outing with the band Third Day in 2004 on a DiGiCo D5, this was Brown’s first extensive hands-on experience with a DiGiCo console.
“During the first leg of the tour, we had been using another digital console, which in the context of the live sound of the shows had not been an issue. We came to realize that the board tapes that were released for downloads every night after the show were sounding small—there was no depth in the sound field—which completely stumped us as the shows had been sounding great! To try and figure what was going on, I spent a week with the console and the multi-tracks from the shows, basically starting afresh, but we ended up with the same issue!”
The following week the SD7 came into play. “I was up at Eighth Day Sound for 4 days to work on prepping the FOH control for the second leg. They had an SD7 there for me to try, with the option of carrying it on tour along with the current console. On my first day, the current tour console was not available, so I spent the whole day playing with the SD7. The only problem was, on listening back to the multi-tracks through the SD7, they sounded great. Remember, I had just spent the previous week listening to the tracks on one particular show, so I had become very familiar with how they sounded, but through the SD7, they sounded way different, with no EQ, HPF or LPF, the tracks sounded open, crystal clear, with a nice tight defined low-end—and I hadn't even started doing anything.
On the second day, Brown had both digital desks hooked up to a d&b J series system with multi-tracks hooked up with the same session, on the same song, so they were going into the consoles digital, plus coming out of both on AES into a Dolby Lake for switch purposes. “No AD/DA conversions done by the consoles. On playback of the tracks, the difference was surprising! The previous touring console, had a great sounding mix going on, but it didn't have the openness on top end or the clarity and definition of the low end that the SD7 had, plus to do a real comparison, I bypassed everything that was happening, both consoles, no EQ, HPF, LPF. Same result again, but a greater difference. This time the other console was basically missing any clarity in high-end, with a muddy undefined low-end. The testing was done, and my decision was made: I was switching consoles to the SD7!”
Day three, just to confirm the change, Brown had the Production Manager come into Eighth Day Sound for a comparison of the two consoles, both as before, with no EQ, LPF, HPF, on the same song, 5-10 seconds of comparison on each. “Basically the PM's response was, 'That's a no brainer, we’re changing consoles then?'”
On the Phish tour, Brown is working with 2 stage racks boasting the 112-capacity, but are only been utilizing 68 inputs. “Phish is basically a 4-piece band, with a decent about of inputs, plus the options of special guests, which could be another drum kit! We have to be ready for anything with this band, and the DiGiCo system allows us that flexibility to expand or contract according to the special requirements of whatever.”
Utilizing an RME MADI bridge in conjunction with two SSL XLogic Delta-Links into a Digidesign Pro Tools HD 3 system, Brown multitracked nightly for archival purposes and possible future releases.
Ultimately, the band was extremely pleased with the audio upgrade he says. “They know there was a change, and plus they've heard great things from people in the audience… so they've been happy with what changes we made.”
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