The trio of SD7s were in place at FOH and two in monitor world — one for the band and one for artist monitors.All the consoles were shared among three DiGiCo SD-Racks (running at 96 kHz) through a fiber loop with FOH designated to control the analog head amp levels. FOH has one dedicated rack to handle outboard I/Os and delay P.A. feeds, and the two monitor boards were configured to accommodate 112 input channels and enough outputs for 24 stereo inear mixes. “I’d like to think the ease of sharing all of the DiGiCo stage racks contributed to this going very well,” says FOH engineer David Payne.
THE FRONT OF HOUSE SETUP
For Payne, who has worked with Taylor over the last four-and-a-half years, SD7 was a natural choice for the Red tour for a host of reasons: layout, sound quality and effects processing capabilities, as well as its integration with the Waves SoundGrid bundle. Not to mention its capacity to handle high input count, which is nearly 96-channels for Taylor and the seven-member band comprised of keyboards, drums, two guitarists, fiddle, bass and a utility string player; along with four background singers and 14 dancers. Payne also employed a pair of AES output cards at the stage racks to drive their Dolby Lake processors. “With a high channel count, it really helps to have the full set of faders, screens, and metering at your disposal. The SD7 also has the full multiband compression and dynamic EQ on every channel of the console. And the console’s sonic quality is great, very warm and clean when you need it, or engage some tube saturation and make it a little dirty. It is super easy to set up for any user’s exact needs, whether it’s 1-to-1 or re-arranged in any way you can imagine.”
GOING OUTBOARD
“I also use a couple of outboard pieces at FOH for channel processing,” Payne notes, “as well as playback channels, and signal routing for opening acts. We have chosen to use the CON send/receive function for routing of stage talkbacks and other playback lines between FOH and monitor world. I’ve been curious to try externally
keyed gates and this year we made use of that function on the console… Very cool! I have always been a fan of the multiband compressor on the console and the dynamic EQ is an excellent low-latency option for grabbing hold of a trouble frequency when necessary on a source.”
Outboard gear at FOH is kept to a relative minimum, with the exception of a Neve Portico channel on Taylor’s lead vocal, as well as some Waves plug-ins for texture and problem-solving through redundant SoundGrid servers. A few of his favorites include the Waves Mercury and SoundGrid Bundle (C6, H EQ, H-Delay, RVerb, to name a few); the API 2500 and Puig-Tech EQP-1A (on drum bus processing); NLS and SSL G Master Bus Compressor (on the stereo bus); NLS and CLA3A (on guitars); API 560, CLA76 and MaxxBass (on bass); NLS,
C6 and CLA2A (for vocals); and TrueVerb, H-Delay, RVerb and Doubler as effects.
At the stage rack side, Payne is feeding a stereo mix to video and in return, he gets a stereo feed for the show’s pre-roll footage. Additionally, he sends a stereo board mix to the tour’s Pro Tools engineer (Chris “CJ” Boggs) every night for archival purposes.
Boggs is using a 112-channel Pro Tools recording rig that utilizes an RME MADI bridge for coaxial-to-optical MADI conversion. That feeds into two Solid State Logic XLogic Delta Link devices that communicate with the HDX cards in a Mac Pro tower.
Payne can use this for virtual soundchecking, as well as acting as a backup for the multi-track record rig that the tour carries. Via MADI insert patching, Payne is also using the Pro Tools computer for some vocal effects, namely the BitCrushing effect used on the song “Trouble.”
MONITOR WORLD
Over in monitor world, Jordan Kolenc handles mixes for Taylor, with Scott Wasilk working with the band. This wasn’t Kolenc’s first outing with DiGiCo; he’s been using them for over five years, the first of which was in 2008 with Juanes’ La Vida… Es Un Ratico (Life… is a Moment) world tour. Like Payne, he also fell in love with the SD Series’ versatility and the multiband dynamics processing available on every channel.
“This is so important when you are working with high channel counts, like we have on this tour,” Kolenc comments. “Our stage is clear of any speaker sources, which means everyone is on in-ear mixes. We are using 24 Shure PSM-1000s to handle all stereo wireless mixes and our drummer and MD/keyboard player are both using a wired stereo mix via Albatross Audio’s PH9B headphone amp.” Just in case, the tour also carries eight d&b Audiotechnik M4 wedges for support acts and any guests that may perform during Taylor’s set.
“Everyone has a discrete stereo ear mix except for the dancers, who all share one ear mix,” Kolenc continues. “Scott, our band monitor engineer, deals with the musicians, techs, dancers, and Pro Tools operator mixes. I deal with Taylor, four background vocalists, opening act Ed Sheeran (who also performs one song during Taylor’s set) and any guest mixes that may come our way. The workload is split up nicely between the two consoles so that everyone onstage can receive the attention they need during sound checks and performances. We are up to about 96 input channels from the stage (the majority of which are RF mics and instruments) and an additional 12 audience mics strategically placed around the arena for Pro Tools recordings. Taylor has four separate mics that appear at different points in the set which we are running into an AES input card at 96K with the analog outputs of each RF mic receiver being run into alt inputs as back-ups.”
Kolenc set up a few macros to deal with toggling effects, alternate inputs for Taylor’s mics and talkback routing. “Scott and I both deploy some unconventional matrix routing for our cue mixes so that all eight of the talkback mics from stage/tech worlds and the three engineer talkbacks are always bused to our ears throughout the performance while cueing other mixes on the console.”
Onboard, Kolenc’s using the SD7s multiband compressor on quite a few inputs instead of massive EQ cuts to control problem frequencies. As far as outboard gear is concerned, he’s using a Summit TLA-100, a TC Electronic 2290 and Empirical Labs’ Lil Freq dialed in to insert on Taylor’s vocal in the event of a Waves server failure. He’s also got eight channels of SPL’s Transient Designer 9842 (on select drum inputs via two rackmount units), plus a few Waves SoundGrid plug-ins for miscellaneous processing.
“I like the basics best: Renaissance Axx, H-EQ for its analyzer tool and precision, and the C6 is great for focusing on trouble frequencies and dynamics smoothing on almost any input source,” Kolenc explains. “The two selectable bands are a nice added feature/update from the C4. Specifically, I’m using H-EQ, Renaissance Axe, and L2 on guitars; an SSL G-Master Buss Compressor and H-EQ on drum channels; an API 560 EQ, C6 and CL-3A on bass; an API 550A EQ, Renaissance Channel and Renaissance Axx on strings; a CL-2A, C6, SSL channel EQ and Renaissance DeEsser on vocals; a PS22 and C6 on keys; and an H-Delay, Doubler and RVerb for effects.
“DiGiCo’s interface is a breeze to navigate and having the ability to customize the control surface by reordering banks, channels, and screens quickly is of great benefit,” he sums. 96k, Waves and rack sharing are three features that don’t exist simultaneously on any other competitor’s flagship systems. I’m a fan of anything with an intuitive, easy to dial interface that produces quick usable results.”
