BERLIN, Germany - August 2014 Cher recently completed the first North American leg of her Dressed to Kill (D2K) tour, which is scheduled to resume in Albany, NY in mid-September and run through early November, encompassing a grand total of 74 shows. The tour features three DiGiCo SD7 consoles supplied by Black Box Music of Berlin, Germany, the live sound production provider for the entire tour, which are operated by Dave Bracey at front of house with Jon Lewis mixing monitors for Cher and Horst Hartmann supplying monitor mixes to the seven-piece band, dancers and technical crew.
Cher is the only artist to reach number one on the Billboard singles chart in each of the past six decades, and has sold over 100 million solo albums worldwide, plus more than 40 million records with husband-and-wife pop duo Sonny & Cher. The D2K tour, Cher's eighth solo venture, reunites the three engineers, as well as system tech Ulf Oeckl, other crew members and some of the musicians, who all worked together on P!NK's 140-plus-date The Truth About Love tour, which wrapped in early 2014.
Bracey, who made the transition from DiGiCo's D5 to the SD7 for Massive Attack's 2008 European tour, and whose resume includes extensive touring with The Cure, Robbie Williams and Bj rk, reports that he typically does a lot of programming in the console. With Cher going through nearly a dozen costumes during the 18-song show, the D2K tour features numerous film and video montages while the star is offstage changing. As Bracey reports, some of the audio for the archival footage is less than pristine: You have to process it in a way that makes it intelligible in the room, he says. So every interlude between every song needs its own snapshot. Some of the archival movie clips have such disparate audio signatures that only some well-adjusted multi-band comp and a channel of dynamic EQ would make the whole segment intelligible. The SD7 offers so much that I am yet to use a plug-in.
The programmable features of the SD7 are part of the reason that Bracey has used the console exclusively for the past six years. It's infinitely controllable, but it never controls you or gets you into a situation where you're too scared to call up the next snapshot. It makes life easy. Like the D5 before it, he says, the SD7 allows the operator to update a single snapshot or apply changes across every snapshot, on the fly. No other desk does it as well that's the reason I still use it. I see no reason to mix on any other console, he says.
With Cher making so many costume changes it makes sense to have one mixer focusing solely on her needs, according to Jon Lewis, who has worked with AC/DC, David Gilmore, Paul McCartney and many others. DiGiCo is my go-to board, says Lewis, not least for the support that you get from the guys, especially initially setting it up.
The three SD7s are on an optical loop that allows the three engineers to share anything on the network, including video and communications. That gives us the ability to throw something to each other at the click of a button, as opposed to having to go and find some XLR cables and patch it, says Lewis. If Dave suddenly needs her talkback mic, he can get it. If I need Dave's effects returns, they're there. It's very quick and easy. And the ability to send video feeds around the system is great as well.
Even simple things like text chatting during the show, Bracey chimes in. If there's something that's not worth disturbing someone over, you just send them a message and they can answer in their own good time.
Hartmann, whose credits include Kraftwerk, Scorpions and Sade, generates 12 stereo and 12 mono sends from his SD7. He manages all of the wireless equipment and crew communications while also feeding mixes to the musicians, who are all on in-ear monitors, several of them with separate ButtKicker low frequency effects feeds, and the dancers, via floor wedges and flown sidefills. Every musician has a talkback mic, every crew member has a talkback mic, says Hartmann, noting that all of the technicians are either under the stage or off to the sides. There's a lot of communication going on. Since their sightlines are obscured, Hartmann and Lewis are able to follow the on-stage action on their consoles' video screens.
At front of house, Bracey multitracks the entire show at 96 kHz to a laptop using DiGiGrid MGB coaxial MADI interfaces, both as an archive and as an aid to perfecting his mixes. Two little boxes, a couple of Ethernet cables into an Ethernet bridge and into the computer how easy is that? Most days I feel the need to listen back to it, says Bracey. It's always very revealing.
For more information on Black Box Music and Cher's D2K tour, visit: www.black-box-music.de/en
DiGiCo Press Contacts
David Webster at DiGiCo
Tel: +44 1372 845600
Email: webby@DiGiConsoles.com
Chris Shuler at Public Address
Tel: +1 269 815 5055
Email: christophershuler@comcast.net
Images:
1) DiGiCo_CherD2K_DaveBracey.jpg
2) DiGiCo_CherD2K_HorstHartmann.jpg
3) DiGiCo_CherD2K_SystemDiagram.jpg
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
BERLIN, Germany - August 2014 Cher recently completed the first North American leg of her Dressed to Kill (D2K) tour, which is scheduled to resume in Albany, NY in mid-September and run through early November, encompassing a grand total of 74 shows. The tour features three DiGiCo SD7 consoles supplied by Black Box Music of Berlin, Germany, the live sound production provider for the entire tour, which are operated by Dave Bracey at front of house with Jon Lewis mixing monitors for Cher and Horst Hartmann supplying monitor mixes to the seven-piece band, dancers and technical crew.
