In a relatively new application, XTA's DP324 dynamics controller, or SiDD (Seriously Intelligent Digital Dynamics), has been chosen for use with the in-ear monitoring system for Sophie Ellis-Bextor and her band. A total of five channels were used under the control of monitor engineer Sean Busby-Little, who commented: "SiDD is a very versatile unit because it has so many functions, which are all easily accessible for a live gig situation. A lot of digital units tend to be a bit slow to access the parameters but I have not found that with these, everything is very user friendly . . . You would normally have to have at least three units chained together to achieve what you can do with one of these so the size of it is an added bonus, all the toys you need and it's only 1U."SiDD (the DP324) is a powerful processing unit incorporating Brick-Wall limiting, input EQ, High and Low pass filters, ADT and Delay, Compression and Gate and Expansion with side-chain EQ. Interface software allows real-time control of multiple SiDD controllers with a PC. Over the past few years, in-ear monitoring has quickly become the de-facto foldback method for live performance and the engineering skill for balancing the sound have moved from the battle of feedback over level to a more finite art: that of creating the perfect mix for each performer. The use of high quality earpiece drivers within these systems makes the dynamics control of paramount importance to avoid damage to the musician’s hearing.
XTA products are available in the UK via Beyerdynamic.
