UK - Dear Evan Hansen brought an aesthetic focus on social anxiety to Broadway and West End stages, vividly and musically. In doing so, the theatrical production received considerable critical acclaim, nominated for nine Tony Awards and winning six.
The arrival of Fourier Audio’s transform.engine, and especially its recent v1.2 software enhancement, which adds features like Cuelists that can snapshot the entire state of all currently loaded plugins and MIDI control to fire Cues, has played a key role.
“Finally, a proper bona fide solution to plugins on a DiGiCo console,” says Tom Marshall, the sound designer for the current UK touring edition of Dear Evan Hansen, now in the midst of its 29-city run. “I put the transform.engine on my list as soon as I knew it was out there and working and as soon as I knew that the v1.2 update for the MIDI program changes were on its way as well, It was a no-brainer. I was like, ‘right, let’s do this.’ It’s time to use something new and specifically for the job at hand.”
The only concern that Marshall faced, as he was hitting the road with a DiGiCo Quantum338 console, supplied by Stage Sound Services, was how to fully integrate his array of plugin processors while keeping latency to a minimum. The transform.engine has streamlined the entire front-of-house workflow, operated by colleagues Olly Smith, the show’s head of sound, and deputy head of sound Craig Flint.
“Structurally, I use it for inserts on channels and groups and for all of my effects processors, too,” says Marshall. “Having the Cuelists function was vital because I need to recall different parameters and settings at the push of a button, especially reverbs and effects, as if they were standalone units, just send them program changes to recall snapshots. I don’t do anything more clever than that. But it’s the ability to do just that, easily and reliably, which is the key for me.”
The Fourier Audio device offered Marshall a way to “keep it all neat and clean” as he puts it, for his array of plugins. These include LiquidSonics’ Seventh Heaven Professional, Waves’ F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQ, CLA Drums and the Abbey Road TG Mastering chain.
“The beauty of the whole thing is it enables me to put everything in one place. Up until now, I was using several different platforms to host outboard plugins, as well as various internal desk processors, and it all felt rather cumbersome. It was just getting to the point where I really needed a tool that could take care of everything in one box and integrate neatly with the DiGiCo.
“And so, when the transform.engine was launched, I thought, ‘finally, this solves everything straight away and you’re not limited to manufacturer-specific plugins – a real game-changer for theatre sound.”
