Jose Ramon Quintero, FOH engineer for Intocable, with his SSL L300
USA - Fusion band Intocable have enjoyed a 25-year career, winning three Grammy awards and and playing record-breaking stadium concerts. Their latest Highway tour has taken them all over the US since June and culminates in November in Houston, Texas.
The band's tools of choice at both FOH and monitors are SSL L300 consoles, and Jose Ramon Quintero has engineered with both, previously as monitor engineer, and now as FOH engineer. "When I started with the L300 on monitors, the band immediately noticed a huge change in the mix and in the 'room image',” he says. “There is a great separation between the instruments, and there’s a much warmer, more analogue sound than the console we were using before."
According to Quintero, the band's reaction to the technology was an important moment, as they are all accomplished musicians, and most have their own personal studios. “They can really play,” he says. “And they can hear too. I think the SSL Pre-amps have made the biggest difference.”
There are seven members of Intocable and Quintero has a 52-channel input list across drums, percussion, bass, Bajo Sexto, accordion, vocals, and comms. He uses the console's 32 x 36 output matrix for the seven PA outputs, with subs driven from an auxiliary. All 36 matrix outputs of the console have filters, 4-band EQ, delay, all-pass-filters, and insert points for internal and external processing.
The journey from monitors to FOH with the same band has been an enlightening one for Quintero; having honed mixes for the individual band members, he was in an excellent position to bring that experience together into the single FOH mix. But he believes that the SSL Live console has made a significant contribution too: “This is the first time they have been able to bring their analogue studio sound to a live show. Thanks to SSL for making that possible.”
(Jim Evans)

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