SQ Provides Compact and Powerful Monitoring for The Sweet

British glam rock group The Sweet have been making music since the 1970s, with multiple UK Top 20 hits throughout the decades. Despite various personnel changes over the years, the band continues to tour internationally over 50 years since their founding.

Handling monitors for the band since 2014 is Daniela Seggewiss, who chose to use an Allen & Heath SQ-5 console. “The first consideration for me when planning to buy a console was the size and weight as I needed the setup to be able to fly,” recounted Seggewiss. “As a monitor engineer I also need a good number of outputs, and the SQ5 with a DX168 (stagebox) provides me with 32 In / 20 Out in an incredibly small setup. But of course with all that processing power under the hood, that is not small at all.”

The SQ-5 and DX168 stagebox both fit together in her iM2950 Pelican Storm Case – keeping things compact and below the weight limit for most major airlines.

Beyond the form factor, Seggewiss appreciates the workflow of SQ – specifically the dedicated MIX buttons in the master section that control which bus the faders send to, as well as the customizable fader layout. “The fact that I can change the surface layout to anything I need is especially important when using a small console,” explained Seggewiss. “I need to be able to have the most important channels always at my fingertips to make quick adjustments without having to look at the console for too long.”

As for audio processing, Seggewiss notes that she has upgraded her SQ with the Dynamic Trio Pack – which provides powerful dynamics tools such as Dynamic EQ and a Multiband Compressor, as well as a flexible De-Esser. These optional RackFX add-ons can be easily inserted on input channels, groups, auxiliaries or the main mixup (up to 8 instances) as needed. “I very much like to use multiband compression on IEM mixes,” she described.

Seggewiss knows that the band is happy with their mixes, simply because no news is good news. “The best feedback I get from the band is nothing at all,” she explained. “I was able to create the sound they are used to on SQ, with the added bonus that this sound now travels with us due to the small footprint of the setup.”