DiGiCo and L-Acoustics powered the 50th anniversary celebrations for the legendary US TV show Saturday Night Live. The high point of the show’s multi-event commemoration was SNL 50: The Homecoming Concert, broadcast live on NBC, SNL’s longtime network home, and streamed on Peacock from Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, as well as at select IMAX theatres at Regal Cinemas.
Artists returning for this singular event on February 14 included Bonnie Raitt, Cher, Dave Grohl, David Byrne, Jack White, Jelly Roll, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, and Ms. Lauryn Hill.
Event organiser Firehouse Productions brought in two DiGiCo Quantum 338 consoles for monitors and Quantum7 consoles for front of house, abetted by a dozen SD-Racks. These managed a total of seven 56-channel splitters between house and broadcast sound.
The event’s L-Acoustics loudspeaker system was equally expansive, comprising two hangs of 14 K2 each, one hang of 16 Kara II for the centre channel, two hangs of nine KS28 subs each, twin stacks of three KS28 for ground subs, 16 Kiva for front-fills, and four ARCS II for out-fills.
The system, designed using L-Acoustics Soundvision software and managed by LA Network Manager on a Milan-AVB network, accommodated a turntable stage that enabled one artist to perform as the next one was setting up, while comedy and sketch performances took place on a third performance area downstage left.
The pairs of Quantum7 and Quantum 338 desks were split between each half of the turntable, with the third stage sharing their work surfaces. The DiGiCo consoles’ flexible workflows gave the mixers – FOH engineers Jason Crystal, Jamie Pollock, and Dan Gerhart, with Mike Bove and César Benítez mixing monitors – what they needed to mix a diverse range of music genres and performances on the fly.
Mark Dittmar, VP of sales for Firehouse Productions, which handled the live-sound reinforcement for the three-hour event, said: “The Quantum7 is unparalleled with the number of inputs and outputs it can handle. We had a total of seven 56-channel splitters feeding all of the I/O SD-Racks for this, so there was a huge amount of inputs and outputs that were being shared among these desks and at monitors, feeding over 40 in-ear mixes and 30 monitor wedge mixes, plus three sets of stereo side-fills. It was a huge amount of equipment and it takes a very big desk to accomplish that. Our engineers who were mixing the show are all intimately familiar with the DiGiCo line, specifically the Quantum desks, and they’re very fast on them. That power is what allows them to work so fast.”
The L-Acoustics loudspeaker system had to fill the iconic space at the Radio City Music Hall. Dittmar concluded: “Radio City’s just such an amazing sounding place, it was imperative to have a system that performed well both musically and coherently. Dialogue needed to be at the right levels of volume and intelligibility. This audience was one of the most reactive I’ve ever seen in my career – and intelligibility is vital to getting that level of reaction to comedy bits. At the same time, fidelity is paramount for music. With L-Acoustics, we had both.”
