Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

DiGiCo Desks Are Unbreakable On the Road with Janet Jackson

01/11/2015

NASHVILLE, Tennessee - November 2015 -- Janet Jackson embarked on a major world tour at the end of August, hitting the road on the initial North American leg with audio production provided by VER Tour Sound, including a pair of DiGiCo SD7 consoles, at front-of-house and monitors. At the end of September, StubHub announced that the early dates, in support of Jackson's new No. 1 album, Unbreakable, placed the tour among the top 10 hottest concerts of the fall season based on sales through the online ticket marketplace.

The non-stop Unbreakable show, which features over 30 songs in just over 90 minutes, generates 109 inputs, including Pro Tools tracks, to the two DiGiCo desks. Even with all those sources, Kyle Hamilton, Jackson's FOH engineer since her previous tour, in 2011, has no need for additional outboard effects. I've always stayed away from using extra outboard stuff, just because I don't need it. Everything I need in a desk is already there. If I need a nice tap delay, it has it. If I need a standard verb, it has it, he says. In addition to the SD7 he is also using a DiGiGrid MGB coaxial MADI interface to record to a laptop for subsequent virtual soundchecks.

He likes to keep things simple, he continues. Reverbs are for when you're in a sterile environment, to create atmosphere and ambience. I just add the stuff that makes it cohesive for the environment that we're in. My goal is to mix to make it sound like the record with a live feel. That particular method has kept me working for the last 22 years.

Hamilton, who is only carrying four outboard mic preamps for vocals and bass in addition to the console, continues, I have a high-powered desk, the SD7, and the desk itself sounds great. What I'm getting from the band sounds great. Our Pro Tools is incredible and the stems are all amazing, because we take time to go through all of that meticulously. So I don't need to add extra processing.

He adds, Pro Tools is the sixth band member. If you break it down to a five-piece band it sounds empty if you don't have all the elements there. The meat of everything comes from our band; the sweetness comes from Pro Tools.

Hamilton has worked with a who's who of major artists, including Pharrell Williams, Wale, A$AP Rocky, Rick Ross, Rihanna, Demi Lovato, Prince, Toni Braxton, R. Kelly, Nicki Minaj, Jamie Foxx and many, many others, over the course of more than two decades. He has been using DiGiCo consoles since 2008, when he took a D5 out on a Lionel Richie tour. I've used them all: SD5, SD10, SD11; from the biggest to the smallest. I know the DiGiCo family very well, he says.

Monitor engineer Jim Roach, whose resume includes Guns N' Roses for the last three years, Maxwell, Jill Scott, Brian McKnight, Joe Cocker and Keyshia Cole, among others, is another longtime DiGiCo fan. I've been using DiGiCo since 2010, maybe a little before, and I used a D5 in 2007. The audio quality is stellar, he says. With other digital consoles, I sometimes find myself missing the old analog sound, but DiGiCo happens to have a sound that I love.

Roach feeds 44 outputs to Jackson and the five band members drums, bass, guitar, keyboards and a DJ and the three background vocalists, all on in-ears, plus nine dancers, on side fills, as well as the production and technical crew. The DiGiCo console has proved to be very useful on this project, as the musicians experimented with different instrumentation and song arrangements during the extensive rehearsal period, he reports.

It's the most flexible console I've ever used, says Roach. On a show like this that changed and evolved over the course of 10 weeks of rehearsals they were trying out different ideas it was great to be able to change the console around every other day to meet the new configurations.

The Unbreakable World Tour is currently scheduled through the end of June 2016. The current North American leg is followed by several dates in Japan. Following a brief hiatus over the holiday season the tour will resume in January 2016 in the US before heading to Europe in late March, returning in May for more shows in the US and Canada.

For details on Janet Jackson's concert itinerary, visit www.janetjackson.com/tour. VER Tour Sound can likewise be found online at www.verrents.com.

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) JanetJackson_KyleHamiltonSD7FOH.jpg Kyle Hamilton at the Unbreakable tour's DiGiCo SD7 FOH desk

2) JanetJackson_JimRoachSD7MON.jpg Monitor Engineer Jim Roach mans the monitor mix on an SD7
LINK: http://www.digico.biz/docs/latest_news/EuuZFkZluuVimCOHBz.shtml...
See more stories from digico

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

04/07/2026

Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in Dolby Cinemas Across Japan, Presented in Dolby Atmos and Dolby ...

April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...

01/07/2026

Broadcast Management Group Appoints Kathy Samuels as Director of Creative Services

Broadcast Management Group (BMG) has announced the appointment of Kathy Samuels ...

01/07/2026

Shade Launches Custom Objects and Automations

Shade has announced Custom Objects and Automations, a platform expansion releasing June 29, 2026, that adds database and workflow automation capabilities direct...

01/07/2026

FOR-A America Adds Two Regional Sales Leaders

FOR-A America has announced the addition of Jaz Wray and Fernando Cruz to its U.S. sales team. Both report to Ernie Leon, Senior VP and Head of Sales and Strate...

01/07/2026

NBC Sports To Present All 15 MLB Games Nationally on July 4 Weekend Star-Spangled Sunday'

NBC Sports will air all 15 MLB games nationally on Sunday, July 5, across NBC, P...

01/07/2026

Clear-Com Upgrades Wireless Communications for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune

Clear-Com has announced a wireless communications upgrade for Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, deploying FreeSpeak II and FreeSpeak Icon systems across both prod...

01/07/2026

England Deploys Sony STATSports Live GPS Tracking at FIFA World Cup 2026

England's performance team will use Sony's STATSports APEX GPS tracking system to monitor player physical data in real time during FIFA World Cup 2026 m...

01/07/2026

Adder Technology Appoints Neil Hillier as CEO

Adder Technology has announced the appointment of Neil Hillier as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Hillier succeeds Adrian Dickens, who transiti...

01/07/2026

Bitcentral Splits Into Two Companies: Bitcentral and ViewNexa

Bitcentral, Inc. has announced a strategic transaction creating two separate companies. The Production and Playout business will continue as Bitcentral, now own...

01/07/2026

DAZN48 Creator Initiative Draws Global Participation for FIFA World Cup 2026

DAZN has announced results from DAZN48, its creator initiative for the FIFA World Cup 2026. Launched in April 2026, the program received thousands of applicatio...

01/07/2026

IDEA To Induct Daktronics Sarah Rose Into Hall of Fame

Sarah Rose, VP, global services, Daktronics (NASDAQ: DAKT), will be inducted into the Information Display and Entertainment Association (IDEA) Hall of Fame at t...

01/07/2026

Gravity Media Delivers Distribution and Streaming Services for World Economic Forum in Dalian

Gravity Media and the World Economic Forum's production team provided broadc...

01/07/2026

Insight Productions Launches Insight Storm, a 53-Foot Esports Broadcast Truck

Insight Productions has announced the launch of Insight Storm, a 53-foot mobile broadcast unit built for esports production. The truck is built around a Ross Vi...

01/07/2026

ESPN Announces America 250 Content Initiatives Across Platforms

ESPN has announced several content initiatives marking America's 250th anniversary, as part of The Walt Disney Company's Disney Celebrates America pro...

01/07/2026

At Cosm, FIFA World Cup 2026 Is a Coming-of-Age Moment as Shared Reality Becomes Bucket-List Entertainment

Eleven production kits, REMI workflows, and cloud distribution bring 40 World Cu...

01/07/2026

SVG Regional Sports Production Summit Draws Industry Leaders to Denver for Deep Dive on Evolving RSN Landscape

The conference also discussed the opportunities offered an industry that is endu...

01/07/2026

Mountain West Launches MW+ Streaming Platform Powered by Kiswe

The Mountain West Conference has announced the launch of MW , a direct-to-consumer streaming platform powered by Kiswe. The platform will carry live Mountain We...

01/07/2026

Tracktion unleash Waveform 14 DAW

New AI Assistant, Multi-channel Audio, ARA2 improvements & more Tracktion's DAW software has just received its latest major update, gaining a selection ...

01/07/2026

The Crow Hill Company release Brackish Pads

Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...

01/07/2026

Sweetwater & Andertons launch Darkglass Anagram Limited Edition Guitar Essentials

Exclusive run of limited-edition modelling pedals Sweetwater and Andertons M...

01/07/2026

Call for NFVF funding applications to attend Film Festivals and Markets taking place from 01 August 2026 - 31 October 2026

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) is pleased to announce that the ca...

01/07/2026

FCC Plans to Auction 160 MHZ of Midband Spectrum

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

CBS Miami Launches Hope 4 Venezuela' Relief Effort

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Riedel, SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration With SimplyLive Integration

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Gray Media to Buy American Spirit Media's TV Stations

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Cascade PBS Launches App Solution Provider 'Local Public

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Manfrotto Introduces UNCOVER, the new premium camerabag collection for modern hybrid creators

Manfrotto Introduces UNCOVER, the new premium camera bag collection for modern h...

01/07/2026

Blackmagic Design Powers Houston Tamil Sangam Literacy Competition

Blackmagic Design Powers Houston Tamil Sangam Literacy Competition Brie Clayton July 1, 2026 0 Comments Volunteers use ATEM Mini Pro, Blackmagic Desig...

01/07/2026

Riedel, SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration WithSimplyLive Integration

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

PlayBox Technology Publishes State of Broadcast Infrastru...

PlayBox Technology has published State of Broadcast Infrastructure 2026, an in-depth industry research report examining the technologies, operational challenges...

01/07/2026

Jigsaw24 Appoints Alan Henry as Head of Sales for Media a...

LONDON, UK, 1 JULY Jigsaw24 has appointed Alan Henry as Head of Sales for Media and Entertainment, reinforcing its continued investment in helping broadcaster...

01/07/2026

Content Vault Partner with XMA to Distribute Universal Fi...

Content Vault, the patent-pending secure content distribution platform protecting high-value media from disclosures, theft and unauthorised access, today announ...

01/07/2026

Bitcentral Announces Strategic Evolution to Create Two F...

Bitcentral, Inc. a leading provider of enterprise software and digital media solutions for news, sports and entertainment broadcasters, as well as streaming pla...

01/07/2026

Adder Technology Names Neil Hillier as CEO

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

IBCAP Opens New Anti-Piracy Lab in Denver

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

FCC Plans to Auction 160 MHZ of Mid-Band Spectrum

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

CBS Miami Launches 'Hope 4 Venezuela' Relief Effort

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

01/07/2026

Groundbreaking First Nations Screen Business Accelerator launched through national partnership

Groundbreaking First Nations Screen Business Accelerator launched through nation...

01/07/2026

Chyron Launches the All-New Chyron Academy: A Reimagined, Hands-On Learning Experience for Live Broadcast Production

Chyron Launches the All-New Chyron Academy: A Reimagined, Hands-On Learning Expe...

01/07/2026

Amplium Captures Kawasaki Brave Thunders Game with Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive

Amplium Captures Kawasaki Brave Thunders Game with Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersiv...

01/07/2026

Boris FX Optics Expands Plugin Support to Apple Photos, Capture One, and Affinity Photo

Boris FX Optics Expands Plugin Support to Apple Photos, Capture One, and Affinit...

01/07/2026

UKTV appoints Matt Berry as General Manager to lead brand and marketing strategy

UKTV has today announced the appointment of Matt Berry to the newly created role of General Manager - Marketing, effective 1 July. Matt will take on this senio...

01/07/2026

Fussy asks Britain one simple question: Are you a Tosser?

Sky Zero Footprint Fund-backed TV campaign featuring Deborah Meaden challenges consumers to rethink everyday bathroom wasteWednesday 1 July 2026 Fussy asks Bri...

01/07/2026

New Sky research reveals postcode lottery leaving girls behind in sport

Constituency-level analysis reveals where girls miss out most on sport - and where targeted action could unlock more than £640 million in economic and health be...

01/07/2026

Riedel and SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration With SimplyLive Integration

Wuppertal July 1, 2026 Riedel and SKAARHOJ Expand Collaboration With SimplyLive IntegrationRiedel Communications today announced an expanded collaboration wit...

01/07/2026

Apple Creator Studio gets smarter, faster, and more connected - UPDATE - Posted on 30 June 2026

Apple today introduced power-packed updates to Apple Creator Studio, a groundbre...