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“Afrikaans is Groot” powered by DiGiCo

For three weeks in November, Time Square’s 8,500-capacity SunBet Arena in Pretoria, South Africa, is home to “Afrikaans is Groot”, a series of performances devoted to Afrikaans music and culture. 2023 was the first outing with DiGiCo Quantum consoles and in 2024 the audio team increased their capacity with a Quantum 338 and Quantum 326 Pulse at front-of-house and Quantum 338 at the monitor position.

2024 was Afrikaans is Groot’s biggest year yet, boasting nine shows over two weekends, with over 70,000 people enjoying the spectacular cultural experience. Kyle Freemantle is Head of Audio for the production and has overseen the growth over the last decade. DiGiCo continues to be Afrikaans is Groot’s console of choice.

“DiGiCo consoles are at the top of my list because of their flexibility regarding Optocore networks and their ease programming”, says Freemantle. “We are running an additional Dante network for all the radio-microphones and playback lines. In total, we have just shy of 128 inputs across both the Optocore and Dante networks. All these inputs are fed via copy-audio and Dante to a pair of MADI/Dante bridges, which feed two MADI recorders for our main recording. There is a backup recording, which is fed by the MADI outputs on the RMIO units to a DiGiGrid MGB to accommodate all 128 channels.”

Freemantle uses Fourier and DiGiGrid MBG for all external processing. Klang is in use for in-ear-monitoring, enabling a consistent environment for the many performers featured during the concerts. “Fourier runs all the effects and multiband compressors on the masters”, says Freemantle. “It’s been great being able to use the Valhalla reverbs. The fact that its Dante I/O ties into our existing large Dante network makes load-in time much faster. The need for third-party gear has also drastically reduced.”

The shows combine musical performances from a whole host of Afrikaans musicians, but they also reflect the cultural richness of the Afrikaans community, combining spoken word performances in a Variety-style. This style of performance can mean a busy time for monitor engineers, but as Gert Watson found out, having Klang and DiGiCo on your team can make all the difference.

“With a variety show like this one, where all the artists join each other on stage to perform a single number, I have countless button presses on the console for each song”, says Monitor Engineer Gert Watson. “I was really surprised by how seamless the DiGiCo/Klang integration is. Using Klang on the artists aux sends did not affect my workflow or speed at all; it was so smooth that I almost never had to take my hands off the surface to fiddle with a laptop because everything was right there on the console.”

Paulo Azevedo is a producer and Executive label manager for Coleske Artists PTY, promoters and producers of the concerts. His understanding of his label’s artists makes him well placed to mix front of house. The show is so complex that there are two FOH engineers, with Azevedo mixing the vocals and Murray Lubbe looking after the band, tracks and additional instruments.

“Afrikaans music is vocal forward, so we need to have the acoustic space to ensure the vocals can be managed effectively”, says Azevedo. “There are some really quick cues in the group numbers, with people entering and exiting in quick succession. This is a unique performance, with a full range of emotions for the audience, from excitement and comedy to nostalgia and legacy.”

The show is staged in a variety format, with a full house-band that is adapted for each performance, with drums, bass guitars and keyboards being added or removed as needed. There are backing vocalists and sixteen lead vocalists, who may also be playing acoustic guitar, all using radio-microphones and in ear monitors.

“Because the show is so big, the audio team have three full days to rehearse”, says Azevedo. “We keep most channels in isolate throughout rehearsals and sound-check, then once the performance has settled, we start recording Snapshots. The rehearsal days are full on before we even hit the first show, but it gives us the time to programme everything nicely.”

Azevedo’s Quantum 326 Pulse is programmed to change Snapshots via timecode, so when there are big group numbers, that could have up to thirty triggers during a song, it is all taken care of automatically by the console.

Günther Müller, Project Manager for the show, supplied the 326, adding the console to MGG’s inventory just in time for the festival, maintaining their position as Africa’s largest stockist of DiGiCo consoles.

(Photos: Kief Kreativ/Ruben Roos Photography/Quintin van der Merwe)

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