Rex Orange County, Who Cares?

An Entire FOH Ecosystem. In a Fly-Pack.

When you're flying into a different venue every day, you can't control the PA, the console or the infrastructure waiting for you. So FOH Engineer Jake Rudd took a different approach: carry the parts of the system that matter.

For Rex Orange County's Who Cares? tour across Asia, Australia and New Zealand, that meant building a fly-pack around a DirectOut Prodigy MP, with Waves SuperRack SoundGrid handling the show's plugin processing.

The challenge was fitting an entire FOH ecosystem into something that could travel on a commercial flight.

The Prodigy MP became the fly-pack

The locally supplied DiGiCo consoles were connected to the Prodigy via MADI. From there, the Prodigy handled the routing between the console, SoundGrid, recording system, PA and outboard.

But it wasn't just the routing hub.

Different Prodigy modules gave the system 128-channel SoundGrid and USB connectivity, 128-channel bi-directional MADI, analogue and AES PA outputs, measurement mic input and analogue inserts.

That meant one device could take the place of several pieces of ancillary hardware.

The built-in SoundGrid switch also connected the Waves Extreme Server-C and Axis Scope directly, removing the need for a separate network switch.

Less hardware. Fewer connections. Fewer things to carry.

Taking virtual soundcheck with you

Recording was another non-negotiable.

Using the Prodigy's USB.IO card and a Mac Mini running Pro Tools, Jake could reliably record up to 128 channels for multitrack capture and virtual soundcheck.

That mattered because virtual soundcheck wasn't just a recording tool. It was part of maintaining consistency when the room, PA and production environment changed every day.

System tuning without touching the show file

The PA could vary dramatically from one venue to the next.

Rather than relying on local system processors or changing the console show file, Jake used the Prodigy's onboard DSP for FIR and IIR filtering, matrixing, level control and delay.

Smaart integration was also handled through the Prodigy, including the measurement microphone and console reference.

The result was a clean separation between the show and the system.

The mix stayed the same. The PA could change around it.

Even the awkward jobs disappeared

The DirectOut Prodigy.MP also solved two problems that would normally mean carrying more hardware.

First, MIDI.

A DiGiCo macro could send a MIDI program change to the Prodigy, which embedded the MIDI data into the SoundGrid stream and triggered a Waves SuperRack parameter. One MIDI cable did the job without a separate MIDI interface.

Then there was timecode.

The show used playback-derived LTC to automate snapshots, but the DiGiCo consoles only accepted MTC. The Prodigy.MP converted LTC to MTC and sent it back to the console over MIDI.

No additional timecode converter required.

And there was still room for some analogue

Because the Prodigy.MP consolidated so much of the system, Jake could fit in two pieces of hardware he wasn't prepared to leave behind: a Kush Clariphonic MS and Sonic Farm Creamliner III.

So the fly-pack didn't just preserve the technical essentials. It preserved the parts of the mix that mattered to the engineer.

Nifty System Notes

The challenge wasn't finding a console capable of mixing the show.

It was carrying enough of the system to make the show consistent, without turning a fly-pack into freight.

The Prodigy.MP made that possible by consolidating routing, SoundGrid, recording, system processing, measurement, inserts and timecode conversion into one device.

The result was a complete FOH ecosystem that could travel with the engineer rather than depending on whatever happened to be waiting at the next venue.

A fly-pack shouldn't mean leaving capability behind. It should mean carrying the right capability with you.