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A compact team used two Quantum7 desks for house and monitors and an SD7B in Zen Broadcast\u2019s OB ‘Little Buddha’, making the truck the Optocore clock source to enable a pre\u2011show recording pass and three performances in two days for the charity gala.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The Mountbatten Festival of Music returned to the Royal Albert Hall with a technically ambitious audio rig that balanced the demands of live theatre, broadcast and commercial recording. According to the original report, the production used two DiGiCo Quantum7 consoles supplied by Terry Tew Sound & Light for house and monitors, while a DiGiCo SD7B ran the outside\u2011broadcast (OB) truck where Zen Broadcast captured the festival for live streaming and a commemorative DVD and album. Ben Milton mixed front\u2011of\u2011house, Bill Birks handled monitors and Andy Deacon oversaw the OB mixes and recording session \u2014 a compact team delivering audio across multiple platforms for sold\u2011out audiences. <\/p>\n
Speaking to rAVePubs, Andy Deacon described the OB truck as \u201cbuilt around the SD7B, and before that, the SD10,\u201d and explained the practical advantages of using the truck as the timing master. He said the team sets the truck\u2019s racks to the lowest Optocore ID so they become the sync source, allowing every unit on the Optocore loop to clock to the truck automatically \u2014 a workflow the engineers characterised as an elegant solution for a show of this size. ProSoundWeb\u2019s coverage of the same production corroborates that the SD7B was central to the truck configuration and to the show\u2019s clocking and network strategy. <\/p>\n
The production\u2019s relentless schedule \u2014 three performances in two days with a recording pass completed before the first concert to produce the album \u2014 shaped all technical decisions. Milton told rAVePubs that keeping the same Quantum7 consoles from rehearsals in Portsmouth through to the Royal Albert Hall saved crucial time on site and meant the FOH team arrived fully prepped. This approach also helped the event\u2019s fundraising mission: the Mountbatten Festival is staged as a multi\u2011performance gala to maximise revenue for Royal Navy and Royal Marines charities, and has been a Royal Albert Hall fixture since its inception in 1973. <\/p>\n
All three engineers highlighted features that speeded workflows and reduced complexity under pressure. Birks told rAVePubs that console\u2011to\u2011console communications were invaluable: he takes the majority of inputs individually but can quickly request or hand back channels to the FOH desk when a performer unexpectedly needs them. The team also relied on functions such as Copy Audio and Snapshots \u2014 routing tools that allow raw multitrack feeds to bypass channel processing for clean recordings and instant recall for the musical director\u2019s in\u2011ear monitors. Industry write\u2011ups note these capabilities helped the engineers provide immediate playback and accommodate artists with varying levels of in\u2011ear experience. <\/p>\n
The choice of DiGiCo hardware reflected a wider rationale about reliability and familiarity. DiGiCo\u2019s product literature emphasises FPGA\u2011based engines for high channel counts and low latency; the Quantum7 family is presented as a seventh\u2011generation platform with expanded processing and I\/O capacity, while the SD7B is positioned as a broadcast\u2011grade console with redundant engines and extensive analogue, AES and MADI connectivity plus an Optocore loop as standard. In editorial terms, those claims explain why the manufacturer\u2019s desks are a common choice for hybrid live\/broadcast events, but they should be read as vendor specifications rather than independent measurements. <\/p>\n
Zen Broadcast\u2019s own materials confirm the SD7B is the work surface for its \u2018Little Buddha\u2019 truck and list Andy Deacon among its sound supervisors, underlining the operator\u2011level continuity between Zen\u2019s fleet capabilities and the festival\u2019s production needs. The company\u2019s fleet page also notes that other trucks in its stable carry different consoles such as SSL and Studer, underscoring that the SD7B was selected deliberately for this particular OB brief. <\/p>\n
The result was a tightly run audio operation that married the pageantry of the Massed Bands of His Majesty\u2019s Royal Marines to the technical demands of modern multi\u2011platform delivery. Engineers described adapting a large, traditionally acoustic ensemble to in\u2011ear monitoring and fast turnarounds as challenging but ultimately manageable with the chosen consoles and workflow, enabling the charity\u2011raising festival to reach audiences both in the hall and beyond while creating a commercial recording of the event.<\/p>\n