Kevin Madigan Takes Fourier Audio transform.engine on the Road with Santana’s Oneness Tour FOH and studio engineer for artists including CSN&Y, David Gilmour, Lana Del Rey, and The Smashing Pumpkins says the transform.engine has improved workflow and reliability LOS ANGELES – July 2026 – Legendary guitarist Carlos Santana’s Oneness Tour is a massive, multi-site 2026 concert series by Santana, alternating between shows on the road across North America and his long-term residency—An Intimate Evening with Santana: Greatest Hits Live—now in its 14th year at House of Blues in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
With support on the road from the equally legendary Doobie Brothers, Santana’s sound has been further strengthened this year with the addition of the Fourier Audio transform.engine, a VST3 plugin host server housed in a robust 2U chassis that brings studio-grade audio software plugins to live productions.
Front-of-house engineer Kevin Madigan has occupied Santana’s live mixing seat for nearly a decade, in addition to working live and in the studio with other iconic artists like CSN&Y, Lana Del Rey, The Los Angeles Philharmonic, David Gilmour, The Smashing Pumpkins, Kendrick Lamar, Rihanna, Maroon 5, Usher, and The 1975. But this year there’s been a notable enhancement to the job done from his usual DiGiCo Quantum5 console—the Fourier Audio transform.engine.
“It’s been totally reliable for us, with truly zero problems, since the very start,” says Madigan, with much of his Irish accent still intact after years of living in Southern California. “It’s really made a positive difference in my workflow.” He says he’d been asking for a solution like the transform.engine for a long time before it existed, way before plugin processing had become so popular for live sound applications.
Onboard processing has much improved over that time, he agrees, and DiGiCo console capabilities have significantly expanded and improved greatly. But the widespread adoption of plugins has allowed FOH engineers and artists to bring their preferred processors on tour. Latency and DSP power can be limiting factors, but the Fourier Audio transform.engine combines the flexibility of choice in processing with powerful DSP architecture and exceptionally low latency.
“I’ve been talking with my friends at DiGiCo for over 20 years, going back to when I started using their D Series consoles and seeing the value of external processing in terms of plugins and how they could be implemented, before anything like that was available on the platform,” he says.
“So we had been talking about it for quite a long time.” Taking an opportunity while the FOH package was being prepped ahead of this year’s performances, Madigan asked for the Fourier Audio server to be installed for use during the Santana residency earlier in the year. “I use a range of plugins, including some favorites from Waves, like the PuigChild, F6, C6, Magma BB Tubes, and Abbey Road Reverb Plates. Others from the new transform.suite, including the SSL Native Bus Compressor 2 and UAD Distressors, I use on a variety of things like drum bus and vocals,” he says.
“There’s already such a fantastic selection in the transform.suite, but I love that I can add other options I want, like McDSP Futzbox and AE600, which do a really important vocal effect in ‘Smooth,’ plus LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven.” Those same benefits were evident when he brought the DiGiCo Quantum5 and transform.engine setup to the Walt Disney Concert Hall this year for sold-out performances by globally renowned Japanese composer and classical pianist Yoshiki.
Best known as the founding member and drummer of the legendary rock bands X Japan and The Last Rockstars, Yoshiki performed with an orchestra and an impressive lineup of guest vocalists, including Josh Groban, Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell, and Korn’s Jonathan Davis, creating a truly unique concert experience at the world-renowned Los Angeles venue.
For more information, visit fourieraudio.com.
