5SOS Choose DiGiCo For Meet You There Tour

Australian pop-punk band, 5 Seconds of Summer (5SOS) made their name as somewhat of a YouTube sensation, but rose to international stardom after touring with One Direction, during their 2012 Take Me Home tour. 5SOS have since released three studio albums, headlining three world tours in the process.

Their Meet You There tour supported their 2017 hit record, Youngblood, and at stage left position, Pavan Grewall was working from his trusted DiGiCo SD10 console.

Grewall is adept at both FOH and monitor roles. He has flown faders at FOH for a number of well-known artists including Meghan Trainor, Nick Jonas, and Canadian singer-songwriter, Carly Rae Jepsen, with whom he spent five years touring the world.

His role as monitor engineer with 5SOS was one he enjoyed: he was working with both the band and the DiGiCo SD10, supplied by Adlib – Sound, Light & Visual Solutions, for 18 months. It is the overall functionality, ease of use, and sound quality of the console which has made it his go-to desk.

“I ran an SD-Rack and a SD-MiNi-Rack to accommodate the additional inputs for this show,” he said. “And I really love the mic pres on the SD10: they’re so transparent, and that’s what I really enjoy – and actually, that’s what I need- for working monitors, because ultimately, I am trying to give the band the truth of it.”

And that means so colouration, unless they ask for it, he explained: “The guys are very easy to work with, and know what they like to hear. Occasionally, the drummer might ask me to jazz up a mix, or something, which is cool, and very easy to do on the SD10 – but with this console, I ultimately get more of what is actually happening, as it delivers a very pure sound.”

Grewall used Snapshots for everything within the show, which he said keeps the mixing process as simple as possible. “I also have a Snapshot for anything that needs to be done every day,” he revealed.

“For example, there was a portion in the set where Michael [Clifford, guitarist] and Callum [Hood, bassist] switch vocal mics, so that happened with my Snapshots. And I take timecode to trigger that. The internal FX within the console are also excellent – I used them on everything, along with a few Waves plugins, just as extra tools when I need them.”

The uber-successful 5SOS Meet You There tour ran from August to November 2018, kicking off in Osaka, Japan, and finishing up in Madrid, 52 shows later, with Grewall’s SD10 not missing a single beat.