DiGiCo Goes Out With Ellie Goulding posted: 25/06/2016
Eighth Day Sound sends SD5, SD7 and SD10 out on North American leg of Delirium World Tour
UK-based singer-songwriter Ellie Goulding is currently in the middle of an extensive tour that kicked off in Europe in January with Adlib Audio and includes two North American legs extending into late June, with European and US festival dates plus shows in Australia and New Zealand keeping her on the road through mid-October. The Delirium World Tour's North American dates, with audio production handled by Eighth Day Sound, include a full complement of DiGiCo mixing consoles-an SD5 at front-of-house with an SD10 available for opening acts, and an SD7 at the monitor position.
FOH engineer Joe Harling, who has been touring with Goulding for two and a half years, first started using DiGiCo desks three years ago. I find that their routing flexibility and features such as two insert points per channel allow me to achieve what I want. They have a very neutral sound, which is a good blank canvas' to start building from, says Harling, who has also worked with Lana Del Ray, Maccabees, Michael Kiwanuka, Meteronomy and numerous others.
On the Delirium tour, Harling is also using two Waves SoundGrid servers with the SD5, running MultiRack externally on a Mac Mini via a DiGiGrid MGB interface. I'm using a fair bit of nice outboard for compression and reverbs, but I still lean pretty heavily on Waves plug-ins, he says. I like to think of my plug-ins as 50 percent utility' and 50 percent vibe.' A second MGB interfaces to another laptop hosting Metric Halo's SpectraFoo for RTA metering plus weird and wonderful effects from Valhalla and Soundtoys, he adds.
Mike Flaherty, with Goulding as monitor technician since 2013, took over as engineer in mid-2015. He has mixed on DiGiCo desks since the beginning of 2014, initially using an SD10. I found the footprint was perfect for festival situations, and the versatility of the board was everything I needed. Since then I've used the SD9 on other tours and have the SD7 on the current tour, says Flaherty, who, as an 11-year veteran with UK rental company Adlib Audio, has also worked with The Script, Foals, and Catfish and the Bottlemen.
I find the dynamic EQ a very useful tool as I dont incorporate Waves into my sessions, continues Flaherty. The console's video input has also been convenient, he says. That was especially useful when we were touring with a B stage. The video guys ran a show feed into the console, which helped massively when I couldnt see Ellie at the other end of the arena.
Harling, who has a background as a musician and has been a FOH engineer for the past 15 years, has been relying heavily on plug-ins on the Delirium tour, he reveals. The band mix on this gig is very busy and constantly changing, and Ellies vocal is very quiet, so I use my utility plug-ins to try and clean stuff up and make space for the vocal. I use WNS on Ellies vocal to get a bit more gain before feedback and reduce spill into her mic, which is especially useful if shes on a B stage or thrust.
Harling typically has numerous instances of C6 running, as he explains: I use quite a lot of side-chaining-for instance, kick drum ducking the lowest band of C6 on bass guitar and synth bass; Ellie's vocal ducking a tiny bit of mid-range out of a C6 on the band mix; acoustic snare drums ducking the transient of triggered electronic snares in C1; and triggers on the acoustic snares being used to open gates. I then use character plug-ins such as API EQs, H-EQ, CLA76, NLS, the Puig comp and EQ, and H-Delay to give me the vibey sounds.
In contrast, Flaherty leans on the DiGiCo desk's on-board facilities for his DSP needs. I keep everything internal to the board except for Ellies vocal and drum effects, where I use two Bricasti M4 reverbs running AES into the console. That helps to keep things as consistent as possible for the band when we have to deal with fly shows and one-offs, he reports.
Both engineers are making use of the snapshot capabilities in the DiGiCo consoles, with Flaherty typically using them to recall fader and mute changes plus some EQ moves between songs. Harling's snapshots are triggered by MIDI timecode from the stage. On the desk there isnt much happening scene-to-scene, apart from mutes, fader levels and some EQs on the electronic sources such as keys and playback, Harling explains. Each snapshot also sends MIDI to Waves and to my System 6000 reverb unit. In Waves, its pretty much just sending tempo information to H-Delay, and the 6000 has various user presets recalled for each song.
Harling sends four DiGiCo matrix outputs, designated left, right, sub and fill, to system tech George Puttocks rack of Lake processing. George does all the system timing, etc., in there, but I still find it useful to have hands-on control over sub levels and so on in the desk. The matrix section of the DiGiCo is great, as anything can go anywhere. I actually don't send my vocals to the main L/R buss, but rather have them meet the band mix in the matrix, where appropriate levels can be adjusted per send. I also can build broadcast mixes and press feeds in there, with different mastering' compression or EQ applied, Harling elaborates.
At monitors, Flaherty is generating stereo IEM feeds from the SD7 for 12 performers, all on in-ears-using Sennheiser EM2050 transmitters-with 22 body packs assigned. There are five mixes for Ellie and the band, with three BGV sends. For this campaign we have the addition of four dancers who have another mix with four cloned packs. The remaining three sends are for the playback tech, my PFL and a spare transmitter. I also run three additional sends to d&b Q-SUBs for the drummer, bassist and keyboard player.
About DiGiCo
DiGiC
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
30/05/2026
Zero in on one that says yes (and no)
Andy Marken May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Hero image courtesy of Deposit Photos
For content creators the most difficu...
29/05/2026
With InfoComm 2026 just weeks away, NDI is giving attendees plenty of reasons to...
29/05/2026
Reaffirming a partnership that has defined Canadian sports broadcasting since 19...
29/05/2026
Mobile/tablet is No. 2 device for watching TV, suggesting that the sports-production industry needs to take another look at the format
Ring Digital's Sprin...
29/05/2026
Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expande...
29/05/2026
Solid State Logic will showcase its new compact, fly-away TCA Tour audio product...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, passed away last month on April 12 ...
29/05/2026
Paramount+ will be the English-language U.S. home for Barclays Women's Super...
29/05/2026
Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters ...
29/05/2026
Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonic's award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to modernize playout operations across cant...
29/05/2026
PTZOptics will showcase a new generation of intelligent video workflows at InfoComm 2026, June 17-19, Las Vegas. Visitors to booth N8227 will see how PTZOptics ...
29/05/2026
Arizona's Family has launched the Arizona's Family Sports (AZFS) streaming app, a new direct-to-consumer destination for live, local sports. The app is ...
29/05/2026
Starting in 2027, DAZN will be the exclusive home of The Canadian Football Leagu...
29/05/2026
Comcast Business has detailed the advanced network infrastructure it has deploye...
29/05/2026
In two-day event, leaders from academia and industry explored solutions to chall...
29/05/2026
The Basketball Tournament (TBT), now entering their 13th year of competition, ha...
29/05/2026
Roku has launched FOX One as a Premium Subscription on The Roku Channel in the U.S. Roku customers can now subscribe to FOX One using their Roku account for liv...
29/05/2026
In its sixth year, the broadcaster's coverage has become a global brand and ...
29/05/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press re...
29/05/2026
The days are getting longer, the temperatures are rising, and playlists are filling up for the season. With summer around the corner, Spotify's global edito...
29/05/2026
New retro-inspired MPC announced
There are few devices that have gained the status held by Akai Pro's MPC range, and in recent years, the company have s...
29/05/2026
Save up to 30 on acclaimed titles
Following a successful launch at Superbooth 2026, Bjooks have revealed that they will be continuing the Kickstarter campa...
29/05/2026
Binaural monitoring application improved
Genelec have just released an update that brings some powerful new features to their HRTF-based binaural headphone ...
29/05/2026
6 June 2026 at SAE Institute, London, UK
IMSTA FESTA 2026 is almost upon us, with some of the biggest names in pro-audio set to descend upon SAE Institute i...
29/05/2026
Gerald (Jerry) Pierce, a pioneering technologist who helped shape the digital transformation of the motion picture industry, died April 12, 2026, at his home in...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Comparing 5 AI Video Enhancers for Restoring Old Video Quality
Kate Luvis May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Digitizing VHS, MiniDV, and other legacy formats doe...
29/05/2026
Studio Hamburg Builds New Post Pipeline with DaVinci Resolve Studio
Brie Clayton May 29, 2026
0 Comments
Workflow replaces a patchwork of legacy tools...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
29/05/2026
At the Intersection of Music and Dance, an Epic Collaboration Boston Conservatory musicians and dancers found creative parallels in their recent performance o...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
Latino Film Institute Fellows Screen Their Short Films at the Egyptian Theatre
The Inclusion Fellowship and Spark Animation Grant uplifts 15 ...
29/05/2026
GLOOKAST LAUNCHES CINNAFILM TACHYON PLUGIN FOR MEDIA PRODUCER AND MEDIA SERVICES
This release first appeared here.
Visit our Tachyon product page or contact...
29/05/2026
May 29 2026, 09:00 (PDT) Dolby and rednote Bring More Immersive Storytelling to...
29/05/2026
Something fundamental has shifted in how people consume media. Audiences aren't abandoning television or radio content; they're just expanding how, wher...
29/05/2026
Youtube exclusive special drops today
Watch now
UKTV today announces another e...
29/05/2026
Back to All News
The Official Trailer of Physical 100 Italy, on Netflix From Se...
DiGiCo Goes Out With Ellie Goulding posted: 25/06/2016 
