Daniela Seggewiss
For engineers to choose a particular brand of console it requires multiple plus points. For audio engineer Daniela Seggewiss, DiGiCo ticks a host of boxes; workflow, customisable layout, support and, most importantly, sound performance that is compatible with many different styles of live performance.
As a child, Daniela knew she wanted to be involved in the live music industry. She loved music but was not keen on performing. Watching a gig at 13, she caught glimpses of people wearing black clothes running around in the shadows and disappearing. Although unsure what they were up to, she knew it was what she wanted to do for a career. From that night, she travelled to gigs and always chatted to the crew. Little did she know that by showing up and showing an interest, she was building contacts that would help her find that all important first job.
“When I was 23, I moved to Leeds in the UK to go to university. It was a monitor engineer who lived in Leeds that I had first met when I was younger, who really helped me out,” Seggewiss recalls. “I’d asked him for work experience and he’d shown me a few things. He also took me to his local venue in Leeds, I got chatting to the team there and a week later, when they needed a monitor engineer, they called me! I never realised at the time how valuable all that teenage experience was.”
Mixing monitors is a very human skill and needs a lot of communication. Engineers must be in tune with their artists, ready to notice any tiny cue that could signal they need something. To keep her full attention on the performers, Seggewiss requires a workflow that is as intuitive as she is. With DiGiCo, she has found exactly what she needs.
“I have just been out on tour with American Thrash Metal Band, Testament. They performed at festivals and arenas across Europe with Anthrax and Kreator,” she says. “At the beginning of my career, I would be happy to jump on any desk, but once I’d used a DiGiCo, I realised the layout just worked for me. I can trust where my hands fall and keep looking up at the stage. I can do it all on muscle memory.”
It is not just the layout of the desk and the size of the buttons that Seggewiss appreciates, the sound of a DiGiCo means the mixing console stays on her rider, wherever the tour ends up.
“The consoles sound amazing. I’ve used the SD12, supplied by Go Audio Rental in Hamburg, for the last few tours and the new processing and 32 bit cards make them sound fantastic!” she says. “I love the Macros. My favourite thing to do is figure out how many different things I can programme on to just one button! I was an in-house engineer for a festival once and I managed to program a whole A-B system into a single desk, with just the Macros. It meant I could prep for the next band while the current one played, then switch them in the change-over. It made the tight 15-minute changes between bands completely possible.”
DiGiCo consoles are flexible, enabling engineers to use them in the way that suits them best. The SD12 benefits from 72 channels at 48/96kHz, 119 Dynamic EQ processors that can be assigned in any way required, and each channel delivers the same pure signal path and feature set, so however the console is set-up, resources are never lost.
For the 2024 Autumn tour, Testament were the special guest performers, which means they sound-checked last. Depending on the way the day had gone, Seggewiss could either have enough time to do a full sound-check or just roll the console into position and plug it in before the band were on stage. When time is this tight, every detail matters and, for Seggewiss, the manoeuvrability of the console is another reason why she continues to choose the DiGiCo SD12.
“For this tour, it was super important that everything was as streamlined as possible, not just the programming, but the size of the console, too,” she continues. “Another great thing about the SD12 is that it sits perfectly on top of a wheeled flight-case, so for the Testament tour, I have my console ready to go with the multicore coiled up in the back of the rack. Sometimes, we were on so quickly that I only had time to wheel into position and plug in. Knowing that I can trust my console to switch on and work without any glitches is fundamental. It works in any condition – cold and wet or hot and humid, we’ve had it all. Occasionally I got a heat warning, but the console kept passing audio. Obviously, that is very, very important!”
The feeling of being part of the performance is important to Seggewiss, with her job satisfaction coming from ensuring the artists can perform at their best and keeping the emotion of the performance exactly where it should be.
“The best thing that can happen is that an artist remains in their own world; they don’t have to look up at me or break their flow,” she concludes. “It comes back to the emotion of a performance. Stepping out in front of 50,000 people to play the music you wrote is nerve-wracking, so if I can come away at the end of the night knowing that I have played a part in making that performance as good as it can be, it’s a great feeling. I can keep my connection with the artists strong thanks to the way I work with my DiGiCo console. I can create that comfort and good sound, and that means the world to me.”
