DiGiCo desks provide ‘home away from home’ for Becky Hill’s engineers

Becky Hill has worked hard since appearing on the UK Voice in 2012 and, to date, is the only contestant to have achieved a British number-one single. The British singer-songwriter has gone from strength to strength, rapidly increasing the size of venues that her tours visit. The 2024 tour, Believe Me Now?, has seen her play the UK, America, New Zealand and Australia.

Engineers Anna Dahlin and Robyn Hannah are using DiGiCo Quantum 338s at both front of house and monitor positions respectively, alongside an SD and SD-Mini rack each, plus an additional SD-Nano rack on stage to accommodate support bands. A final SD-Nano rack is positioned at the front of house position to facilitate a B-stage moment.

Touring arena-sized venues is a massive logistical undertaking and juggling a mixture of full-production shows and fly-ins means that finding the path to consistency can take time and energy. Walking up to any DiGiCo console not only provides the excellent sound quality and reliability required to make the show happen, but it also comes with the benefit of a friendly face, as Dahlin and Hannah have found out.

“I met Becky back in 2012. When she started out with her own band in 2020, she called me and asked me to get involved. I’ve been touring with her ever since,” Dahlin explained. “Until recently, we could fit the show on one SD rack each. However, due to the size of the setup in 2024, we needed to add a Mini rack per console and two Nano racks. Robyn and I spent a long time arranging the input list in order to use a single show file wherever we went, as the show scaled up and down.”

The range of features on a DiGiCo Quantum 338 makes mixing multi-element shows like Becky Hill’s, which balance live instruments with drum and bass tracks, much more manageable. At the front of house position, Dahlin is utilising the Quantum 338’s range of compression, reverb and EQ and has been able to navigate the changes between the size of shows and venues.

“The show is heavily reliant on snapshots. In addition, I use groups to feature sections of players” Dahlin said. “I've also got a bunch of macros to make global changes in a cappella and instrumental moments that allow me to make global changes quickly.

Hannah is equally at home with the DiGiCo Quantum 338, relying on the onboard effects and features to keep her monitor mixes running smoothly.

“I’ve been touring with Becky Hill for about three years,” she explained. “Currently we are using 21 stereo mixes for people on and off stage, so workflow is important. I use groups and macros to make sure I can respond quickly. The large surface layout of the Quantum 338 is also great for keeping organised, which means I can work from muscle memory without taking my eyes off the stage.”

Both engineers appreciate the onboard effects and rely on Quantum for most of their EQs and dynamic processing. Monitors and FOH have been expanded with an outboard SSL Fusion each. Hannah uses the SSL over Becky’s IEM mix to gain additional stereo width. Dahlin, at front of house, uses the SSL sparingly over the master bus and has an additional Bricasti reverb for Becky’s vocal.

“The Mustard processing is in use across most channels and the Naga 6 has been a real game changer because I’ve not needed anything external” Hannah stated. “For Fly shows, it’s great. Because there is nothing to set up, I load my file from my USB and it’s done. It keeps everything consistent.”

Naga 6 is part of DiGiCo’s Spice Rack and is a six-band Dynamic EQ, allowing frequency-specific dynamic control, but it is not just the Mustard processing and Spice Rack that Dahlin and Hannah appreciate about being part of the DiGiCo family.

“I really enjoy using DiGiCo desks because the support you get from them as a brand is great; you can always pick up the phone, from any country, and ask anything,” Hannah remarked. “Even at festivals, they’ll just be there to see how it’s going and whether you need anything. I really appreciate having someone come up and check that you’re doing OK!”

For Dahlin, the benefit of knowing there is always someone there to assist if required has been fundamental, as she concludes.

“I don’t think I’ve met anyone from any other company, but I’ve met DiGiCo’s Mark Saunders loads of times, and the team in America,” she said. “It’s a huge help to put names to faces and have that personal relationship.”