SD10 sounds supreme on J Balvin tour

posted:

23/11/2017

Multiple Latin Grammy Award winning superstar J Balvin has recently embarked on his Energia world tour, bringing his own brand of Colombian ‘Reggaeton’ to the masses. FOH engineer John Buitrago has followed J Balvin’s relentless journey for the past nine years and knows that when putting together his production, only the very best in audio quality will do. This is precisely why he chose a DiGiCo SD10 for the tour and why he has been using the British manufacturer’s consoles for many years.

Keeping up with the growing demands of any world class artist is no easy feat when it comes to sound, and J Balvin is no different. With a consistently expanding input list from tour to tour, John needs to make sure that all demands are catered for.

“I’ve been using a DiGiCo SD10 and SD Rack for the last two years wherever I’ve been in the world,” John explains. “So using it for the current tour, with the new requirements I have for the input list, was pretty easy. In fact, after a quick virtual sound check, I ran the whole show into Snapshots and boom, I was ready to go!”

John is using a 56-channel configuration including instrument channels, vocal mics, guest vocals, DJ supports and talkbacks, with the console’s AES outputs used for the main PA and the analogue outputs of the SD Rack for comms between FOH, techs, lighting and video.

There is always an amount of personal preference when it comes to choosing the right console for any given job, but for John what it comes down to is whether the consoles delivers the best possible sound for show.

“The sound quality of any DiGiCo, plus their amazing headroom, is pretty easy to recognize,” he says. “I chose the SD10 because it has the DiGiCo sound I love and everything else about it is just right for my show.”

John has also been making good use of a DiGiCo/Waves SoundGrid on the tour.

“I’m a really big fan of the DiGiCo and SoundGrid interaction; the way I can get everything connected through the Soundgrid Network,” he adds. “It streamlines access and controls so well!”

As the tour rolls on, the DiGiCo SD10 is there every step of the way, making sure each show goes off without a hitch, but with the challenges FOH engineers like John face each night on these world class shows, technical support is equally important.

“We have access to the most amazing team at DiGiCo,” says John. “From Fernando Delgado and Jaap Pronk from DiGiCo, to Andres Gomez from Codiscos Audio, DiGiCo’s distributor in Colombia. They are all amazing and really smart guys.”

J Balvin is set to continue his tour throughout Central and South America this November, with John deploying his trusty SD10 to make sure that each night sounds just as great as the last.