"People think, 'It's one microphone-how hard can it be?'" says Geoff Hidden, FOH mixer for Fluffy, aka Gabriel Iglesias, the hefty comedian, actor, writer, producer and voice actor out on the road with his Unity Through Laughter world tour since February and known for his online shows I'm Not Fat... I'm Fluffy and Hot & Fluffy. "But there's a lot more to it than that." There is, and a DiGiCo SD9 digital console, including a D2 Rack and integrated Waves plug-ins, is providing Hidden with the specialized tools he needs to make sure that every word is heard.
Hidden says that audio for comedy is all about clarity. "The challenge is keeping Gabriel consistently above the noise of the room and the crowd while also keeping his level consistent from the stage, because in an instant he can go from a normal speaking voice to an explosive sound effect while cupping the mic," Hidden explains.
For that he says he relies on the DiGiCo SD9's Dynamic EQ processor. These powerful processors offer dynamic processing on each of the four standard parametric bands, plus 10 Multiband Compressors and 10 DiGiTubes.
"Using Dynamic EQ, I set a threshold, and when the mic level crosses that threshold, the EQ then activates and begins to turn down that specific frequency," says Hidden. "No other console that I know of has this feature, and it's changed everything about the way I work."
(Jim Evans)
