Stormzy’s headline set at Glastonbury Festival this year was mixed by sound engineer Raphael Williams, using HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi2000 series of consoles.

Williams made use of two of the consoles connected together in Mirror Mode, provided by his own company Bethel Productions.

This mode allows the two consoles to constantly push control data to one another, effectively increasing the available number of faders and Vistonics touch screens. It also provides a back-up in the unlikely event one fails.

In addition to the two consoles, he also carried two Soundcraft Realtime Racks, augmenting the consoles’ world-class on-board processing with a full suite of plug-ins.

Two Soundcraft Vi Stageboxes handled the show’s high channel count of over 100 channels.

Williams was able to improvise by changing the console patch using the Snapshot Recall function — for instance when Chris Martin duetted on Blinded By Your Grace, bringing his own mic.

Williams commented: “The Vi2000 is easy to use — as a generic sound engineer you can walk straight up to it. The functionality is great as are the preamps, and sonically you don’t argue with it.”

“His sound requires different dynamics depending on whether he is rapping or singing. While rapping warrants a very ‘dry’ sound, when he is singing I apply reverb to give him some length.

“I’m glad I didn’t know how many people were out there, because I was in the tent. I’m sure it was scarier for Stormzy than for me.”