SAO PAULO, Brazil — Madonna has unleashed yet another touring extravaganza with the “Sticky & Sweet” tour. After the release of her 11th studio album, Hard Candy, the two-hour multimedia blockbuster has no shortage of technology, or glitz, and showcases the chart-topping singles of her expansive career, while serving up the latest songs. The tour is one of the first to integrate a pair of DiGiCo’s SD7 digital flagship consoles at the production’s audio core.
FOH engineer Tim Colvard previously presided over the 2006 “Confessions” tour, and his 20-year resume boasts entries including chart-topping R&B and rap stars from Eminem to the Beastie Boys to Whitney Houston, R. Kelly and Toni Braxton.
For the current production, Colvard shares the FOH helm with Mark Brnich of 8th Day Sound; similarly Matt Napier is at monitor world on a DiGiCo D5T, along with 8th Day’s Demetrius Moore as the monitor tech, and Sean Spuehler, responsible for Madonna’s vocal and FX.
The tour encompasses over 100+ stage inputs—from instruments, a DJ, to vocal mics, to an onstage Pro Tools effects rig and all of his outboard effects. Each SD7 has two complete digital engines, which are networked and mirrored giving 100% digital redundancy. The second SD7 also has that same redundant regime, but the clever part is that all four digital engines are networked and mirrored to provide quadruple indemnity for the show.
Additionally, all console VGA screen outputs are networked through 6-channel VGA switching arrangements along with his session mirrored on all 4 engines. Four external 21” large screen monitors (2 per console), enable him through the switches to bring up any screen on either console or any page on either console. He can look at a snapshot page on one console while monitoring another page on the other console, all this external to the actual integral screens in the consoles through which he can independently look at any other function he desires.
“The production has gotten more complex since the initial preparations—about three months from the first rehearsal to the first show. It’s pretty extensive now and I have full access to all inputs in front of me without flipping a bank. More or less, we use the secondary console for playback, routed by way of the MADI bridge to do playback from a Nuendo system. Also, from the main console, we MIDI to the second console so that it can trace any movement by way of MIDI that is done on the console. So it fires the same snapshots and then in turn, out of its MIDI, it fires the rest of my hardware effects processing. So both desks will actually talk in the form of MIDI and change each snapshot in the form of MIDI.”
Moving on to monitor world, engineer Matt Napier heads up that realm—an integral part of the overall production, particularly as it pertains to the needs of the headlining artist. He spec’d a DiGiCo D5T to manage over 126 monitor inputs, including 16 channels of vocal effects and inputs shared with Sean Spuehler (responsible solely for Madonna’s FX), in addition to running 44 auxiliary outputs, as well as 16 matrix outputs.
”We had used a D5 since the “Confessions” promo tour in 2005,” Napier explains, “and it was chosen then for its extensive MADI capabilities, as for that tour we had a unique system going on with Apple Logic. For this current tour, although we were mixing it in a more conventional way, the D5 was my first choice thanks to the ergonomic surface. But once we got into the production, it soon became apparent though that the D5 wouldn’t have enough outputs so we switched to the D5T, which is a fantastic console with great sonic capabilities.”
He continues, “I think sonic quality of desks nowadays is more mathematic than musical. As long as the latency is low, the A to D converters are of a high enough standard and the internal processing is 32 bit and floating, then the desk will sound as musical as some of the older analogue boards. My benchmark reference point for all high-end boards is still an XL4. I think DiGiCo was the first manufacturer to produce a console that was as good sounding and as nice to mix on as an XL4. To date I’ve not seen anything else that not only sounds as good but is as fun to mix on.”
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