DiGiCo SD7T a Dream for West End show posted: 04/05/2018
It is 35 years since Dreamgirls first hit Broadway. It was a sensational success then and the latest production at London's Savoy Theatre is equally so. Sound designer, Richard Brooker, wanted an analogue sound to the audio, in keeping with the show's 1960s/70s setting, but also wanted to benefit from today's digital technology. He specified a DiGiCo SD7T to handle Front of House mix duties, which has the warmth of sound he was looking for with all the advantages of the digital domain and the theatre-specific functions of DiGiCo's T' software.
No other manufacturer has put the time and effort into understanding the strange idiosyncrasies of the theatre world, says Richard. The SD7T has functions that are imperative when you're working on musicals and that's because the guys at DiGiCo talk to us, the people that use them, and make them work the way we need them to.
Dreamgirls is the story of The Dreams, three talented young singers who embark upon a musical rollercoaster. They experience the realities, both good and bad, of show business, which tests their friendship to the very limits.
The show is set at the end of the 60s, just running into the 70s and the disco era, says Richard. Stylistically, music changed quite a lot during that period, as did technology in the recording industry. Because of that, I didn't want to do anything fancy with plugins or the like; I wanted an analogue show that wasn't actually analogue. I use the SD7T's onboard dynamics because I love them but, other than that, there's very little in terms of gimmicks going on.
Along with the SD7T, operated by the expert hands of Digby Shaw, Richard also took advantage of an EX007 expander during the production period, allowing him to make any changes he wanted to without interfering with the main console. For monitoring, Richard chose a DiGiCo SD8, which is secreted in the bowels of the theatre and is unmanned, having been set up to do the job on its own and feed the Roland M-48 personal monitoring system used by the band.
We're using around 100 channels, says Digby. We have 12 Groups, and 38 Auxes, which seems quite a lot, but foldback zones, effects and program sends soon add up We are using five external and four internal effects in total and Richard is also using Bricasti reverbs, which are pretty standard for him now and are amazing.
Foldback is set up in zones, with each Zone having its own Aux send to determine what goes to where. This increases the Aux count, but it allows the flexibility to change the mixes if needed, depending on what is in an area at any particular time.
In reality, what happens is there is a band to stage Aux that returns on a fader, and vocals to stage Aux,
which also return on a fader, says Richard. From those channels, we can dial out to all the other zones, rather than dialling every instrument in individually. The relative levels of those faders then change during the show. For example, during the big dance numbers the foldback will lift so that the cast can dance and then it will come back down for a ballad, so they don't have to fight it.
The band for the show is hidden away in a specially constructed studio environment in the pit, designed by Richard to allow, in particular, control of the brass section.
You can't achieve that in an open pit as you need an element of compression to hold everything together, he says. So I have a kit Group and a kit compressed Group and I always use parallel compression. It's not revolutionary, but it works.
Three separately timed vocal groups allow actors to move up and down stage and there is also a hand-held Group. I always used to insert time alignment on individuals and change it as they moved around, but now I just have three groups with three different times - up-stage, mid-stage and down-stage - because the handheld group is matrixed differently and EQ'd differently. There's also a stereo vocal Group, which has any click track vocals that come in, to give a little bit of vocal support in big dance numbers. Then there's a band group, which is guitars, bass, keyboards etc.
Richard likes the SD7's compression which, he says, does exactly what he needs it to do and is fairly transparent.
The gates are good as well, although I don't use them that much, just a tiny little bit on the toms, he adds. Having this many Groups allows us to matrix everything out, which is the main reason for doing it, but also means we can compress the groups as well.
Aliases are also really useful, says Digby. They are like advanced pre-sets. The standard use for describing an Alias is a way to control settings such as EQ, filters and maybe compression on an actor wearing a hat. A hat obviously has a huge effect on a microphone in the hairline and needs specific settings.
On Dreamgirls, more often it's the fact that there are ensemble members who have different minor characters throughout the show. It makes a huge difference to be able to assign different Aliases for these characters and to keep the settings unique. But what makes an Alias even more useful is the fact they ripple through any live changes that are made.
For instance, if a character arrives on stage in cue 20 and changes are made to the EQ, etc., via an Alias, when that character returns in Cue 40 the Alias has the updated live changes, making the whole process much easier to control.
Then there's the Players function, which is also incredibly useful. Just taking the example above, if one of the ensemble has four minor characters plus his own role that's five Aliases. But their role is also covered by three understudies, who all need different settings.
Players enables you to recall the individual setting
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
23/10/2025
A deadline is looming for a new carriage deal between Verizon's Fios TV and Nexstar, with both Verizon and the pay TV-backed American Television Alliance bl...
23/10/2025
NEW YORK During a high-profile session at NAB Show New York, new survey data was shared that revealed significant public concern over artificial intelligence (A...
23/10/2025
BELLEVUE, Wash. and NEW YORK Fox Weather has tapped T-Mobile has as its preferred communications provider and announced that all Fox Weather reporters are being...
23/10/2025
PBS and Amazon Web Services have announced the network is using generative AI to provide enhanced search results to viewers on the PBS App and PBS LearningMedia...
23/10/2025
Series three of the award winning, hit comedy entertainment series The 2 Johnnies Late Night Lock In is back on your screens, celebrating the very best of all t...
23/10/2025
Performances by Michael Flatley, Andy Irvine, Cuckoo's Nest, Foster and Allen and more
Friday 24 October, 8pm on RT One and RT Player
Fleadh Cheoil re...
23/10/2025
The nights grow longer and the shadows get bolder with Vampire The Masquerade: B...
22/10/2025
Prime Video Inks Deal To Present NFL Black Friday Game Worldwide By SVG Staff
Wednesday, October 22, 2025 - 10:06 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story ...
22/10/2025
NBA Tip-Off: ESPN Goes 1080p HDR End-to-End, Flipping HDR Switch on REMI and REM...
22/10/2025
FloSports Empowers Division II, III Athletic Departments With Turnkey Production...
22/10/2025
Wall Street Video Summit Debuts, Bringing Together 200 Financial Enterprise Vide...
22/10/2025
Dueling Pianos: International Chopin Piano Competition Is as Competitive as a Ba...
22/10/2025
In 1995, a young Colombian artist released an album that would change Latin pop ...
22/10/2025
Over the past few months, a photovoltaic system has been installed on a three-he...
22/10/2025
The Orion spacecraft for NASA's Artemis II mission is stacked on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket in High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kenn...
22/10/2025
L3Harris' Hybrid SATCOM is resilient by design, offering path diversity that eliminates vulnerabilities by routing data across the best available networks i...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. Organizers of NAB Show New York said they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countries along with 260 exhibitor...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C The organizers of The 2025 NAB Show New York have announced that they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countr...
22/10/2025
Masque Sound, a leading theatrical sound reinforcement, installation and design company, supplied an extensive gear package of professional-grade equipment for ...
22/10/2025
Lightware, a global leader in signal management and AV connectivity solutions, is seeing strong market momentum for the UCX-3x3-TPX-RX20, a compact transmitter-...
22/10/2025
MELVILLE, N.Y. Chyron has released PAINT 10.2, the latest update for its telestration platform, adding support for SMPTE ST 2110 IP workflows, expanding brandin...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON Run3TV today said NBCUniversal is joining as an investor in the ATSC 3.0 Framework Authority, which develops the Run3TV NextGen TV application platfo...
22/10/2025
ATLANTA swXtch.io will feature two new networking solutions extending the company's reach across more cloud and on-prem workflows at NAB Show New York, set ...
22/10/2025
The Warner Bros. Discoverys HBO Max streaming services has increased prices for all its streaming tiers effectively immediately for new customers. Existing cust...
22/10/2025
LOS ANGELES OpenDrives has signed a new distribution partnership deal with Versatile Distribution Services (VDS) to strengthen its channel and streamline how it...
22/10/2025
WASHINGTON, D.C The organizers of The 2025 NAB Show New York have announced that they are expecting more than 12,000 registered attendees from about 100 countr...
22/10/2025
Samora Pinderhughes Brings Immersive Sound to Berklee's Signature Series The artist and composer, who's worked with Herbie Hancock, Robert Glasper, Co...
22/10/2025
BMI Day at Berklee Celebrates Composer Fil Eisler and Awards Scholarship to Stud...
22/10/2025
October 22nd, 2025 TRIBECA ANNOUNCES STAR-STUDDED LINEUP OF MEMBERSHIP EVENTS F...
22/10/2025
Rohde & Schwarz and TRUMPF cooperate in drone defense Rohde & Schwarz and TRUMPF partner to deliver a comprehensive drone defense solution combining Rohde & S...
22/10/2025
European Broadcaster Upgrades To Grass Valley's NativeIP LDX 135 Cameras And...
22/10/2025
Everyone Gets a Better Deal on Verizon with New FOX One Perk The $15 FOX One streaming service perk is yet another way Verizon continues to add savings for cu...
22/10/2025
First Look Hidden Assets Series 3
Premieres on 9th November 9:30pm on RT One & RT Player
WATCH HERE Promo Link: Hidden Assets Series 3 | RT
The Crimin...
21/10/2025
NAB New York 2025: Although AES Show Is on Its Own, Audio Will Be a Major Part o...
21/10/2025
NAB New York 2025: Business of Broadcast and Media,' Future of Content'...
21/10/2025
SVG All-Stars: Ethan Folz, Senior Director, Digital Operations and Quality of Ex...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: Livestream Offers Graphic Overlays, Predictive Gaming, Ancil...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: At the Front Bench With Producer Frank DiGraci and Director ...
21/10/2025
NBA on NBC/Peacock: NBC Sports, NEP Build Ultra-Flexible Production Plan That Se...
21/10/2025
Indigenous storytelling has been at the heart of the work of the Sundance Instit...
21/10/2025
Top L-R: Mysterious Skin, American Dream Second Row L-R: Little Miss Sunshine, D...
21/10/2025
Last week, Spotify and Columbia Records transformed Pier 4 at the Brooklyn Army ...
21/10/2025
SBS Learn's Dharug Ngurra resource empowers classrooms to meaningfully celeb...
21/10/2025
As global operators simplify and evolve their digital platforms, NPS improvement...
21/10/2025
Critical Design Review completion is a key milestone on the path toward Wideband Global Satellite Communications certification for the network in 2026, opening ...
21/10/2025
New Australian undersea training range to implement and improve warfighting tactics, proficiency and safety; enable joint/allied training that contributes to pr...
21/10/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
21/10/2025
September, the beginning of autumn, brought an expected revival to the TV market, largely due to the new fall TV schedules. The time spent in front of the TV sc...
DiGiCo SD7T a Dream for West End show posted: 04/05/2018 
