Poland – Annual Valentines concerts in the Mazowsze Concert Hall have long attracted a loyal following, and in 2026 audiences were treated to an extravaganza. Alongside the Mazowsze ensemble, the night featured legendary Polish rock band, Pectus. Łukasz Łęcki, monitor engineer for the Mazowsze Ensemble chose KLANG:konductor to manage the complex monitoring requirements of the band, mixed on the venue’s DiGiCo Quantum 852T.
Pectus have enjoyed 20 years of chart-topping success with their eclectic blend of award-winning pop and rock. The 2026 Valentines concert included Pectus hits seamlessly joined with the classical repertoire of the Mazowsze ensemble. The orchestra was seated on stage, directly behind the performers and this presented a distinct challenge for Łęcki. His solution was to replicate the spatial positioning of the musicians in the band’s IEM mixes and KLANG:konductor was ideal tool for this task, its immersive technology giving the engineers the ability to match the orchestra’s precise positioning with an immersive mix. This was tailored exactly for band members and selected members of the Mazowsze Orchestra, including the drummer, timpanist and percussionist.
“A spatialised immersive mix was built to match the real stage layout,” Łęcki explains. “Brass instruments appeared on the left, woodwinds on the right, with strings positioned according to their physical placement. The entire orchestra was placed behind the head of the musicians, exactly where it stood in reality. Our objective was clear, Pectus musicians should hear the orchestra as they experience it on stage, not as a flat stereo image inside their ears, and KLANG was the way to make that happen.”
The Mazowsze choir included 24 performers, each wearing a DPA headset microphone, supported by four Schoeps stage microphones and DPA 2017 shotgun microphones. Due to the concert staging, a traditional tight choir pickup was not possible. Instead, three main stereo groups were created, headsets, ambient microphones, and shotgun mics. Each group was placed in the KLANG:konductor mix according to the physical layout of the choir with Sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses each occupying their own place in the 3D soundstage.
The effect was immediately noticeable. During rehearsals, when the choir spoke between songs, Tomasz Szczepanik, lead singer of Pectus, instinctively turned toward the direction of the sound source. That reaction demonstrated to Łęcki just how accurate the spatial reproduction was.
Orchestral and vocal reverbs were also integrated into the KLANG:konductor setup, further adding to the spatialised feel of the mix. As Łęcki continues, access to the advanced DiGiCo ecosystem ensured that no part of his artistic concept was compromised due to technical constraints.
“As a monitor engineer, I really value speed and direct access to functions and, with DiGiCo, the level of customization is virtually unlimited,” he says. “Importantly, the KLANG scene was designed as a global spatial layout. While console Snapshots opened and closed sources depending on the song, the spatial image itself remained constant. This consistency helped artists maintain orientation throughout the performance.”
With a channel count of over 185, the Quantum 852T was the perfect choice, combined with 32-bit SD-Rack, sonic clarity was guaranteed. The Theatre software is an added bonus for shows like the Valentines Concerts, delivering theatre specific features like auto-update and Alias/Exception management. These features, coupled with crystal clear processing and advanced layout options, ensured that everything the Mazowzse audio team needed to succeed was right where they wanted it.
“With tools at this level, imagination becomes the only limit,” Łęcki concludes. “Modern immersive systems have genuinely transformed my workflow. Artists left the stage happy, and I got to experience the rare satisfaction of hearing the mix exactly as I envisioned, all thanks to KLANG:konductor and the DiGiCo Quantum 852T.”
