AUSTRALIA: When Coldplay’s “Music of the Spheres” world tour landed in Australia in November 2024, the band’s FOH engineer and audio producer Dan Green, alongside Head of audio system design and FOH tech Tony Smith, took the opportunity to put DiGiCo’s flagship Quantum852 to the test. Supplied by Solotech, the console instantly elevated the mix experience for one of the world’s biggest live acts.

“The Q8 has been amazing – it just offers so much more workflow flexibility,” says Green. “It’s taken everything that was great about the Quantum7 and expanded upon that. The screens are amazing, obviously, and it enables me to have more layers and a lot more workspace on the desk. The Q8 is clearly the best of the DiGiCo bunch so far.”

For Green, one of the Quantum852’s standout strengths lies in its onboard processing. “The expanded Spice Rack has allowed me to free up some of my plugin chains, which I was using on outboard processors, and be more integrated into the console,” he explains. “The onboard filters are always the first thing that I go to for any channel that’s coming into the desk. The Q8’s filters work really well – they’ve got a nice analogue feel to them.”

With the band performing across three stages at each show, the input count is formidable. “It’s around about 200 or so, plus another 32 channels of ambient microphones as we’re recording every show,” Green reveals. “The Q8 is amazing because, as far as I know, it’s the only desk on the market that would be able to handle that amount of inputs.”

The Quantum852’s immense I/O capacity also proves invaluable for broadcast feeds. “Our recordings have far too many channels to send out individually to a broadcast engineer,” Green notes. “The Quantum8 has so many auxes that I’m able to create submixes of all of my individual elements and send out 48 channels of stems to the broadcasters so that they’ve got a head start. They can line up their faders at zero and that’s a good starting point.”

Beyond its sonic prowess, sustainability remains central to the tour’s philosophy. “In the audio department, we’ve tried to downscale our racks,” Green says. “Before, I had a lot of analogue hardware and outboard effects. Now, with the Quantum8 and Fourier plugins, we’ve reduced it down to basically one rack. It’s made a big difference.”

Green and Smith were also early adopters of Fourier Audio’s transform.engine, having beta-tested it two and a half years ago. “Fourier was really interesting because I was able to host the VST3 plugins that I use in the studio,” Green explains. “It’s been fantastic. I’ve uploaded all of my effects onto the Fourier and really enjoyed exploring VST3 plugins in a way that I wasn’t able to before.”

Smith adds that the Quantum852’s design shines under demanding tour conditions. “Everywhere seems to be hotter these days, and in some places on the tour the temperature at front of house has reached 43°C,” he says. “The Q8 runs so much cooler, which is amazing, because there’s more processing power under the hood. Knowing that shows will stay up and running even in the hottest conditions is a huge relief.”

Under the stage, Monitor engineer Chris “Woodsy” Wood continues to rely on his trusted Quantum7. “Though he was tempted to move over to the Q8 when we did, Chris is more than happy with the Q7 – so why change if it’s not broken?” Smith remarks.

And through it all, DiGiCo’s support has been unwavering. “They’ve been so supportive and the team are always there to answer a text or help us with any emergency situation,” Green affirms. Smith agrees, adding: “When you’re halfway around the world, things do go wrong. But DiGiCo have always been there. They’ve pulled rabbits out of hats, which has been amazing.”

Coldplay’s tour continues to demonstrate how cutting-edge technology and world-class engineering can come together to deliver a show that sounds as breathtaking as it looks – all powered by the precision of DiGiCo’s Quantum852.x