Sound By Design recently supplied sound reinforcement for the Islamic Relief’s sellout ‘An Evening Of Inspiration Tour’, taken into venues across the UK with shows in Glasgow, Bradford, Birmingham, London, Manchester and Cardiff.

The fundraising event saw an evening of mixed entertainment that included top Muslim music acts such as the American rap band Native Deen, South African singer Zain Bhikha and the British singer Sami Yusuf, all in full band line-ups. The London show held at The Royal Albert Hall was recorded for DVD by an outside broadcast unit, with Sound By Design providing a 56-track HD audio recording of the event in addition to the sound reinforcement.

With a combined input list of 56 channels, Sound By Design's Digico D1 Live consoles were chosen for both FOH and monitoring mixing duties. Front-of-house engineer Griff Hewis chose the Digico D1 as it provided a versatile and compact touring solution for the show. Griff decided to tour a system consisting of ground stacked Meyer Sound CQ-1's and 650-P subs configured in a cardioid array. In addition, Sound By Design toured a flown Meyer UPA-1P rig in the smaller venues and the mid-sized Meyer M2D curvilinear array for larger shows, with Meyer UPM-1P's as system front fill.

Monitor engineer John Gale toured sixteen of Sound By Design's EM Acoustics M-12S wedges, which were powered by QSC amplifiers. A Meyer Sound USW -1P sub and USM -1P drum fill stack was utilized and a Meyer CQ-1 provided stage side-fill. For monitor mixing, John again chose the Digico D1 allowing multiple band sound checks with routing to be recalled and tweaked in an instant each day. With a minimum of fourteen mixes on stage, the versatility of the board proved invaluable and the onboard processing meant that valuable stage space was saved.

The highlight of the tour was a show at the Royal Albert Hall on the 16th April. With Sound By Design’s M2D/ M1D curvilinear array put into the hall and Principal Engineer Phil Wright on board as system tech and recording engineer, an excellent show was put on for the DVD recording. Taking advantage of the Digico D1’s MADI capabilities (a digital multi-core system), Sound By Design used a ‘Pink Pig MADICorder’ and an ‘Autograph MADI recorder’ to provide a main and backup audio recording of the show to hard disk, which will be mixed down in Dolby 5.1.