August 30th saw the very first show with the new Soundcraft Vi Series V3.0 software in use as Norwegian band Secret Garden finished off this year’s tour with a special concert including a symphony orchestra.

Secret Garden has been touring China, Korea and Norway since April with two Soundcraft Vi6 consoles and AKG microphones.

The last concert of the tour was a special outdoor show incorporating a 27-piece symphony orchestra in the band’s hometown of Kristiansand, Norway. With the orchestra and nine musicians/singers on stage, the need for more than 64 channels was obvious.

“When we planned this gig earlier this summer we aimed to use a third Vi6 for the orchestra, but the timing for a stable beta version of the new V3 software was perfect to make it possible to just add, a DSP card in the FOH local rack and a second stagebox to run the required 95 channels from one console,� reported Espen Andersen, Production Manager and Monitor engineer.

The monitor console also ran the new V3.0 software, but with “only� 64 channels as it received four stereo mixes of the orchestra from Dag Stephen Solberg, who mixed the band and orchestra from FOH. The V3.0 software with the upgraded snapshot automation made it possible to add new channels and Aux sends to the existing show with extensive use of the scope and parameter-specific global filtering.

Espen concludes, “Everything worked perfectly, and it was a special night and a fantastic end to a great tour.�

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