Singer, composer, rapper, entrepreneur, activist—all those descriptives and more characterize Maluma, the Latin Grammy Award-winning, Colombian-born entertainer. Add to that list “technology savant,” because DiGiCo Quantum338 consoles are an integral part of his ongoing Don Juan world tour, the North American leg of which runs from August 31 in Sacramento to November 4 in Miami. In fact, the tour relies heavily on the best tech, including Clair Global’s Cohesion series PA system, as well as other DiGiCo products, including SD-Racks, an Orange Box, DMI-Waves cards, and a complete Optocore network loop. But the Quantum338 consoles, used at both front of house and monitors, are the central hubs for a complex but reliable audio infrastructure that performs at every show as flawlessly as Maluma himself.
The implementation of the Quantum338 was a system-critical decision for the tour, says German Tarazona, who this year moved from mixing monitors to managing the FOH mix for Maluma (aka Juan Luis Londoño Arias). “We needed a system that could integrate with our requirements for this tour,” he explains. “We wanted to be able to share gain structure to make fewer format conversions and access our tracks via MADI on the same network loop, and the Quantum series made that all really easy to design, with the support of Fernando Delgado from DiGiCo London and Clair Global, which supplied all of the tour technology.”
Tarazona says the Quantum Mustard and Spice Rack processing have streamlined the system both operationally and sonically. “At front of house and monitors, we are using the new Mustards, and they are a great combination of the legacy and the new DiGiCo technologies. The compressors in particular are amazing. At FOH, I use the new multiband compressors in the Spice Rack to control the sequences and the blend with the live band. They work extremely well and can be assigned to the faders, which assures complete accuracy when making changes during the show. In my main groups, I have a combination of Mustard compressors with their different models—Classic, Vintage VCA Optical, and the FET Limiter—which has allowed me to add different subtle yet expressive colors to my mix. Mustard is a true game-changer.”
The gear list for Don Juan reads more like a dream list: at front of house is a Quantum338, one of two 56×40 SD-Racks with 32-bit I/O used for gain sharing with monitors, an Orange Box used to run sequenced tracks, and a DMI-Waves card for integrating two Waves Titan servers. Tarazona and monitor engineer Juan David Medina are both also using the SoundGrid Qrec app at FOH and monitors for multichannel recording on Reaper software on their respective desks. In total, the show has 76 analog inputs, plus 18 more via MADI, while monitor world has 40 outputs for 20 in-ear mixes and a dozen or so intercom channels. System technician Rick Soukup keeps the wheels rolling, along with PA technicians Brandon Allison and Sam Pinson, and RF tech Austin Dudley.
The Quantum338 became the technology star of the show, Tarazona contends, once all of its possibilities were realized. “At first it was a challenge to initially build the overall gain structure of the show as a team, but by the time we were ready and started using the gain tracking at FOH, it is amazing how accurate and stable the console is,” he says. “We never had any problems. Each console can do virtual soundcheck at the moment you need it.
“It’s a very dynamic show and Maluma is very diverse in his music—our show starts with a very intense intro and we go to reggaeton, pop, regional Mexican songs, salsa, and even batucadas. I mix more than 50 snapshots for different moments of the show where I sometimes have very slight changes, like a high- or low-pass filter, or radical changes of compressions and saturations in my drum, guitar, and bass channels. Whatever I need to do, the DiGiCo is ready. This console allows me to take my mix where I need it; it’s versatile, and being able to use all three screens for my workflow is the best of all. Without a doubt, my Quantum338 was the right choice for this world tour.”
For more details on Maluma’s upcoming performances, visit www.maluma.online. Clair Global can be found online at www.clairglobal.com.
