Why does a four-piece band need the gargantuan capacity of a console like the DiGiCo SD7s? Because they're Coldplay and they can? Maybe. But when you hear about the complex setup of one of the world's most successful band's live shows, you will understand there are undeniable reasons why the SD7, and only the SD7, will do.
Although he looks way too young to have already had such a lengthy career, Daniel Green has been Coldplay's Front of House engineer and co-producer for almost 20 years. Coldplay are, it seems, a band that engenders loyalty, with Tony Smith, Audio Desginer, FOH tech and crew chief, racking up 15 years of service and Chris Woodsy' Wood on monitors 17 years. All are integral to the band, but Daniel who's title on tour is Audio Director also collaborates on the vision of how each song will be presented on stage, a process that starts in the studio.
Live performance is such a big part of Coldplay. When creating new songs, we always consider how they will be performed live, says Dan. Once the album is nearing completion, I'll work with each member of the band to develop their sounds and tones for each song. Also, creating ways to perform the songs in a live context.
The tour, however, is not a reproduction of Coldplay's studio work. Sounds are changed for certain elements to make live' tracks and, despite the band being incredibly accomplished, for arena and stadium shows there are inherent limitations to the sound that just four people can make and there is a little bit of what Dan refers to as bolstering', which is where the use of the SD7 starts to make sense.
We have a regular drum kit of 12 mics or so, but each one of those has triggers for various songs, Dan explains. For example, there might be an electronic drum sound and, rather than put those beats on track, we want to be able to play them live'. That means we have all the electronic drums as inputs, which is like adding another complete band.
All this, of course, adds to the input count. The setup is then replicated on a B stage, plus there is an acoustic C stage.
We do as much as we can to combine things, Dan continues, but we've found that by doing that you end up not having the flexibility you need.
Capacity is therefore key - at last count, the channels at FOH ran to a whopping 192 going to a Live Pro Tools record - but that's not the end of the story. The SD7s, supplied along with the rest of the PA by Wigwam Acoustics, have also been chosen for their versatility and their sound quality, with the touring set up comprising an SD7 and SD Rack at FOH, deployed for peripheral outboard kit, and another SD7 with two SD Racks at monitors. The SD Racks Gain Track, with Dan making good use of the agility of the SD7's worksurface, customising it to be exactly how he wants it.
We also have an SD RE with a Nano for additional I/O and an SD10-24 if we need to mirror to them and to have a control surface to work on, but that rarely comes out, says Tony. We also have an SD11 for Jack Murphy, PA system tech, to use for time alignment for his peripheral gear, which just makes things easier. Everything is on an Optocore loop, apart from the SD11. It's the versatility, the I/O and what we can string on to the system that makes the setup work for us. We're running two loops with four core fibre, because we've maxxed everything out. There are no inputs left on the two loops, and just a few outputs. That equates to 128 inputs per band member; we have FOH on one loop and monitors on the second loop.
Every single note is recorded and used for virtual sound checks, live albums, new song demos, etc., with 32 channels of ambient mics negating the need for an OB truck for one-to-one recording, but for live broadcasts, stems are sent to an OB truck via the FOH console.
Everything we record gets used, even if the band is just jamming, says Tony. We have a crash' record as well, just in case we lose anything. It's key to what the band is after and what we need for running up the PA.
The bussing infrastructure of the SD7 is amazing, adds Dan. When we do a live event, I send various stems out to the broadcast truck and the SD7 enables us to dial all that in. And I use a lot of Snapshots; if I find myself doing something more than twice, I'll make a Snapshot for it. Having a large quantity of faders at my fingertips is also a big thing for me. As much as the Snapshots are important, I like them to be doing things that I don't want to spend time on, so I can concentrate on mixing the band that's what I enjoy most and it makes every show slightly different. It's exciting for me as well.
At monitors, Woodsy is using an SD7 quite simply because it can do everything he needs it to do.
I don't do anything out of the ordinary; the show is big and complicated enough without trying to make it more so, he says. But I am using pretty much everything the SD7 has. I've got just six spare channels of processing, so it's pretty full. As well as the three stages, there's a shout system with mics all over the place for the crew, which gives me about a dozen inputs. A lot of the crew have Aviom personal monitors, which gives me another 16 outputs just for them. It all adds up. There's one pair of wedges on stage and some shakers, everything else is all in ears. The whole system is reliant on networking. Ali Viles, our RF tech, has two systems, so what I send out of the monitor consoles goes to both of our two Racks separately and to two separate in-ear transmitters, so there's an element of redundancy.
There aren't many desks on the market that can deal with the amount of inputs we've got, says Dan. The SD7 is the hub of our whole audio setup and now with the 32-bit mic preamp card, Di
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Why does a four-piece band need the gargantuan capacity of a console like the DiGiCo SD7s? Because they're Coldplay and they can? Maybe. But when you hear about the complex setup of one of the world's most successful band's live shows, you will understand there are undeniable reasons why the SD7, and only the SD7, will do.
