Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

DiGiCo Treats Nicki Minaj Like a Queen on Her Nicki

21/05/2019

CLEVELAND, Ohio Although North American audiences were justifiably disappointed when Nicki Minaj cancelled her fall 2018 NickiHndrxx tour with Future after deciding to re-evaluate elements of production and devote more time to rehearsals before hitting the road, her overseas fans recently got the chance to reap the benefits of a fantastically solid show. Teaming up with Juice WRLD on the aptly named Nicki WRLD tour in support of Queen, her fourth and most recent album, the latest trek stopped at 22 arenas throughout Europe and the UK from February 21 and March 28.

Cleveland-based Eighth Day Sound supplied the tour's PA and control package, which featured DiGiCo SD5 consoles for both FOH and monitors, paired with five SD-Racks and an SD-Mini Rack, all on an Optocore loop. We used a traditional splitter for some inputs, but also shared inputs via the loop, describes FOH engineer Kevin Brown, who has also mixed for Chris Brown, Outkast, American Authors, Toni Braxton, Kid Cudi, Joi and others. Looping the consoles also enabled us to use the Con Send and Receive ports, which was particularly useful when I needed to send audio down to monitors; this could be talkbacks, FX or playback audio from FOH. I also used the new DiGiGrid MGR at my console for recording and virtual playback.

Although he has been a fan of DiGiCo's SD-Range for several years, the Nicki WRLD tour marked the first time that Brown had had the opportunity to use the manufacturer's new 32-bit Stadius Mic Pre-Amp modules. DiGiCo did an amazing job with them! he enthuses. The noise floor is almost zero, and the dynamic range is incredible. Using them on vocals gave me a big, clean sound. We also used them for keyboards. The guys on keys had a lot of analogue synths to replicate the sounds used on the records, and I wanted to make sure we captured what makes us all love analogue synths. We also shared another 16 channels of 32-bit cards that were located in the SD-Mini Rack mounted with our playback rig.

Marlon John, who has been Nicki Minaj's monitor engineer on all of her tours dating back to 2010, was equally thrilled with the new Mic Pre-Amps. I first used the new cards last summer with the Migos and loved them, he recalls. On this tour, we originally used them only on the vocal mics, and they sounded phenomenal-especially on Nicki's mic. Having previously worked with her on various other consoles and DiGiCo desks prior to having the new cards, I noticed that her vocal was actually much easier to mix with the 32-bit Mic Pre-Amps. Her voice sounded bigger and fuller, and I required less gain to get her vocal to where I needed it to optimally sit in her mix.

For the Nicki WRLD tour, her backup band was comprised of a drummer, two keyboard players, a DJ, a backing vocalist and playback, which put the input count at around 80 channels for Minaj's set. Adding Juice WRLD's inputs, plus other local openers, raised that to over 100 channels. Even with that many channels, the SD5 made it easy to navigate the show via snapshots and spill sets, says Brown. I could organize my banks and layers based on the inputs needed for a given song and store the location in the snapshot. Juice WRLD initially played after the first half on Nicki's set; she would descend on one lift, Juice would come up another, and it had to be a seamless transition, so I built a snapshot for his engineer within my session. The SD-Range consoles have a very powerful snapshot engine; we were both able to have all of the settings we needed at the click of a button.

With all vocalists and musicians on IEMs, and no wedges for stage monitoring-aside from two d&b J-Sub and four J8 flown as sidefills-John was manning 20 stereo and six mono mixes on his sub-stage SD5. With the spill set, I was able to configure and lay out the bank where everything was easy to access. Like FOH, we shared the monitor console with Juice WRLD on this tour, and with the SD5's great snapshot feature, I was able to use one snapshot for him within my Nicki Minaj show.

Having mixed monitors for everyone from Trey Songz, Drake and Lil' Wayne to Ne-Yo, Snoop Dogg and Prince over the years, John has steadily relied on the SD platform since 2014. The SD5 is my console of choice; in fact, it's the only console on my rider. I love its layout, and with the multi-screens, I find that I can navigate around the console very seamlessly.

I have been using the SD platform for a quite a few years now as well, Brown chimes in. I don't feel at all restricted by its architecture. It allows me to be creative without worrying about technical roadblocks. Though I was very happy with the SD5 on this tour, my personal favourite is really the SD7, especially with the new Quantum engine. And another thing that I love about DiGiCo is its people. Between Group One in the US and the main office in the UK I can always get a question or concern addressed. They stand behind their products and are always open to feedback from us everyday users. It's a great feeling to know the company fully supports us.

John agrees: I have known Group One's Matt Larson for almost ten years now and he is my go to' person-he can always put me in touch with DiGiCo's great tech support team. I can always rely on them to assist me with any problem I have anywhere I might be in the world, day or night. Out on the road, that level of service is priceless.

Nicki Minaj just announced that she will be touring North America this summer with Chris Brown. For more details, visit www.mypinkfriday.com. Eighth Day Sound can also be found online at www.8thdaysound.com.

DiGiCo Press Contacts

Maria Fiorellino at DiGiCo

Tel: +44 1372 845600

Email: maria@digiconsoles.com

Chris Shuler at Public Address

Tel: +1 574 514 7131

Email: christophershuler@comcast.net
LINK: https://digico.biz/digico-treats-nicki-minaj-like-a-queen-on-her-nicki...
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 ...

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...

01/06/2026

Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 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...

02/05/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Search, Faster Editing, and an AI-Ready Foundation for Modern Media

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

01/05/2026

NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to Integrate Dolby's Full Suite of Premium Picture and Sound Innovations

January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...

15/04/2026

Winter Olympics, Super Bowl Power NBCU-Versant to Gold Medal Performance in Nielsen's February Gauge Reports

NBCU-Versant notches 13.1% of TV viewing in February, its best since August 2024...

15/04/2026

Nielsen CMI shows New Zealand's over-65s are a growing, cashed-up and still-working audience brands can't ignore

New data reveals older Kiwis are financially resilient, loyal to local products,...

15/04/2026

aconnic launches ACCEED 4430 10 Gigabit system for high volume enterprise and business service aggregation

aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, announces the market launch of the ACCE...

15/04/2026

Autocue to Mark 2026 NAB Show Debut of its New PTZ Prompter

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

Locality Deploys Nielsen's Media Data Engine

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

Viant Announces Agreement to Acquire TVision

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

Evergent introduces Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platfor...

Evergent introduces its Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platform, transforming how subscription businesses across direct-to-consumer streaming, pay-TV, telecommun...

15/04/2026

CentralCast Delivers Breakthrough Efficiencies to Public...

Harmonic's XOS Media Processor Delivers Exceptional Video Quality to More than Half of U.S. Public Media Viewership Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announce...

15/04/2026

DPA N Series Wireless System Unlocks Duplex Gap and Guard...

LONGMONT, COLORADO, APRIL 15, 2026 DPA Microphones N Series Digital Wireless System users in North America can now take full advantage of the system's exc...

15/04/2026

Cobalt Iron Launches Compass Tape Gateway Modernizing IBM...

Cobalt Iron, a leading provider of SaaS-based enterprise data protection, today announced the launch of Compass Tape Gateway (CTG), a transformative enhancemen...

15/04/2026

Disguise to Showcase Cutting-Edge Experience Tech for Sports, Broadcast and More at NAB 2026

Disguise to Showcase Cutting-Edge Experience Tech for Sports, Broadcast and More...

15/04/2026

Arooj Aftab Makes the Music She Wants to Hear

Arooj Aftab Makes the Music She Wants to Hear The singular artist explores the juxtaposition of grief and joy, dark and light, in her distinctive sound. Apri...

15/04/2026

Panasonic, NEP Partner on IP-Based Live Production

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

Encompass Digital Media Powers Global Cloud Transformatio...

Interra Systems, a provider of end-to-end quality assurance solutions for the digital media industry, is proud to announce its central role in the digital trans...

15/04/2026

Viaccess-Orca Powers MasOranges Multi-Brand TV Expansion...

VO Integrates Client-Side and Server-Side Ad Technologies with its Secure Video Player and Segmentation Tools, Leveraging Broadpeak's SSAI and BPK SmartLib ...

15/04/2026

TMT Insights Unveils AI at NAB 2026

TMT Insights, a leader in professional services and software development for the media and entertainment (M&E) industry, today announced the launch of TMT AI at...

15/04/2026

Encompass Digital Media and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure E...

Encompass Digital Media, a global leader in managed broadcast and cloud-based media services, today announced an expanded partnership with Oracle Cloud Infrastr...

15/04/2026

Middleman Software Debuts PhaseLock Technology and Expand...

Middleman Software, a leading provider of signaling and synchronization solutions for broadcast and streaming workflows, today announced it will unveil PhaseLoc...

15/04/2026

Deity Announces PR-4 Compact Field Recorder

Deity Microphones today announced the PR-4, a compact six-track field recorder featuring four inputs, 32-bit float recording, advanced routing, and a workflow-f...

15/04/2026

Blackmagic Design Announces Fairlight Live

Blackmagic Design Announces Fairlight Live Brie Clayton April 15, 2026 0 Comments Powerful software-based live audio mixer with support for SMPTE-2110...

15/04/2026

Haivision Launches Falkon X4 5G Transmitters

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

JB&A Spotlights Exhibitors Ahead of Pre-NAB 2026 Technology Event

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

Wave Central, EVS Announce SMPTE ST 2110 Interop Collaboration

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

Top Reason for Subscribing to Pay TV Is Live News and TV, Survey Finds

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

NAB Leadership Foundation Honors Outstanding Broadcasters

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

Wisycom Expands MPR60 With New Multichannel IFB Mode

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

15/04/2026

Thomas Riedel Acquires Premium Manufacturer ARRI

Strategic Alignment With the Riedel Group for Innovation and Growth Thomas Riedel, founder and owner of Riedel Communications and the Riedel Group, has acqui...

15/04/2026

Iyuno Deploys SDVI Rally Platform to Accelerate and Scale...

SDVI, the leading platform provider for cloud-native media supply chains, today announced that the company's Rally platform has been deployed by Iyuno Media...

15/04/2026

Frequency Leads the Industry in Live Local News on FAST

Frequency, the engine behind many of the worlds leading streaming television channels, has become the platform of choice for leading U.S. broadcasters bringing ...

15/04/2026

Harmonic Introduces Breakthrough AI Orchestration Service...

New Service Simplifies Integration of AI Applications with Exceptional Reliability and Security SAN JOSE, Calif. April 14, 2026 Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) t...

15/04/2026

VIDI and Media Links Bring Scalable IP Transport to Germa...

During the 2025 off-season, VIDI completed a major upgrade of the broadcast infrastructure across all 36 stadiums in Germany's 1st and 2nd Bundesliga. The p...

15/04/2026

Clear-Com Introduces Transformational Arcadia and Eclipse...

Clear-Com announced significant updates to its award-winning Arcadia Central Station as well as enhancements to the Eclipse HX Digital Matrix System now runn...

15/04/2026

Shotoku Introduces the World to Aura P2 PTZ Prompter Panner at NAB SHOW 2026

Shotoku Introduces the World to Aura P2 PTZ Prompter Panner at NAB SHOW 2026 Brie Clayton April 15, 2026 0 Comments New system removes PTZ pan restric...

15/04/2026

LiveU Announces Expanded Collaboration with Sony at NAB Show, Adding Direct File Workflow Integration

LiveU Announces Expanded Collaboration with Sony at NAB Show, Adding Direct File...

15/04/2026

This 24-Hour Performance Art Piece Needs Your Participation

This 24-Hour Performance Art Piece Needs Your Participation Keefer Glenshaws latest project is about collaborating with the Berklee community and beyond. Apr...

15/04/2026

Rethinking AI TCO: Why Cost per Token Is the Only Metric That Matters

Traditional data centers only stored, retrieved and processed data. In the generative and agentic AI era, these facilities have evolved into AI token factories....

15/04/2026

RT announces new crime drama The Yank starring Kate Mulgrew and Colm Meaney

Two Cities Television and Keeper Pictures to produce six-part series in association with Screen Ireland for RT and ITV Studios RT has commissioned Two Citie...

15/04/2026

RT unveils The Signal' a specially commissioned 60-second film to celebrate RT100

RT 100 RT unveils The Signal' a specially commissioned 60-second film ...

15/04/2026

New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs

The NAB Show 2026 trade show, running April 18-22 in Las Vegas, is set to showcase a wave of new features and optimizations for top video editing applications. ...

14/04/2026

ToolsOnAir and Omnistream Bring Mobile SRT Contribution into Professional 24/7 Playout and Live News Workflows

ToolsOnAir and Omnistream Bring Mobile SRT Contribution into Professional 24/7 P...

14/04/2026

NAB 2026: Haivision Launches Falkon X4 5G Mobile Video Transmitter

Haivision has announced the Falkon X4, a 5G mobile video transmitter for live broadcast and remote production. The device will be showcased at NAB Show 2026. ...

14/04/2026

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Stripe TVs Matthew Pavey on Making Live-Production Tech More Portable, Intuitive, and Accessible

Founded by veterans of the production-truck world, Stripe TV was born out of a d...

14/04/2026

Studio Berlin Adds LDX 135 and LDX 180 Camera Systems from Grass Valley

Grass Valley has expanded its partnership with Studio Berlin, supplying 12 LDX 135 UHD/HDR camera systems and 12 LDX 180 Super 35mm cinematic cameras, including...

14/04/2026

LTN Appoints Mark Romano and Edward Cox to Vice President Roles

LTN has announced two senior appointments ahead of NAB Show 2026: Mark Romano as Vice President, Multichannel Platforms, and Edward Cox as Vice President, Sales...