Taylor Swifts RED Hot Tour Sizzles with DiGiCo

Amidst rave reviews from top media outlets from the New York Times to Rolling Stone, Taylor Swift's RED Tour is currently in full swing. The Country-pop queen is working her way across the United States, headlining 58 shows in 45 cities in 29 states and 3 provinces in 2013.

Three DiGiCo SD7 systems and a d&B audiotechnik PA, provided by Eighth Day Sound Systems, deliver sizzling sound on the tour. The trio of SD7s are in place at FOH with two for the band and one for artist monitors. For the first time, all the consoles are shared among three DiGiCo SD-Racks (running at 96K) through a fiber loop with FOH designated to control the analog head amp levels. FOH has one dedicated rack to handle outboard I/Os and delay PA feeds, and the two in monitor world are configured to accommodate 112 input channels and enough outputs for 24 stereo in-ear mixes. I'd like to think the ease of sharing all of the DiGiCo stage racks contributed to this going very well, commented FOH engineer David Payne.

Other tour firsts' include making use of the SD7s gain tracking and this was the first Taylor outing in which they employed two monitor consoles.

Payne, who has worked with Taylor over the last 4-1/2 years, is an unequivocal fan of the SD7. He says it was a natural choice again for the Red Tour specifically for a host of reasons: layout, sound quality and effects processing capabilities, as well as its integration with the Waves SoundGrid bundle. Not to mention its capacity to handle high input count, which is nearly 96-channels for Taylor and the seven-member band comprised of keyboards, drums, two guitarists, fiddle, bass, and a utility string player, plus four background singers and 14 dancers. With a high channel count it really helps to have the full set of faders, screens, and metering at your disposal. The SD7 also has the full multiband compression and dynamic EQ on every channel of the console. And the console's sonic quality is great, very warm and clean when you need it, or engage some tube saturation and make it a little dirty. It is super easy to setup for any user's exact needs whether its 1-to-1 or re-arrange any way you can imagine.

He's also employing a pair of AES output cards at the stage racks to drive their Dolby Lake processors. Payne sends Systems Engineer Edgardo Verta Vertanessian a Left, Right, Sub, Front fill, and Delay sends (where appropriate), with the rest of the processing done either in the Dolby's or amplifiers. He's also accommodating a hearing impaired feed, as well as a stereo feed to video and to the lighting director

I also use a couple of outboard pieces at FOH for channel processing, he notes, as well as playback channels, and signal routing for opening acts. We have chosen to use the CON send / receive function for routing of stage talkbacks and other playback lines between FOH and monitor world. I've been curious to try externally keyed gates and this year we made use of that function on the console Very cool! I have always been a fan of the multiband compressor on the console and the dynamic EQ is an excellent low-latency option for grabbing hold of a trouble frequency when necessary on a source.

Outboard gear at FOH is kept to a relative minimum, with the exception of a Neve Portico channel on Taylor's lead vocal, as well as some Waves plug-ins for texture and problem-solving through redundant SoundGrid servers.

At the stage rack side, Payne's feeding a stereo mix to video and in return, he gets a stereo feed for show pre-roll footage. Additionally, he sends a stereo board mix to their Pro Tools engineer (Chris CJ Boggs) every night for archival purposes. He's using a 112-channel ProTools recording rig that utilizes an RME MADI bridge for coaxial-to-optical MADI conversion. That feeds into two SSL XLogic Delta Link devices that communicate with the HDX cards in a Mac Pro tower. He's able to use this for virtual soundcheck' as well as acting as a backup for the multi-track record rig that the tour carries. Via MADI insert patching, Payne is also using the Pro Tools computer for some vocal effects, namely the BitCrushing effect used on the song Trouble'.

Over in monitor worlds, Jordan Kolenc handles mixes for Taylor, with Scott Wasilk working with the band. This wasn't Kolenc's first outing with DiGiCo; he's been using them for over 5 years, the first of which was in 2008 with Juanes' La Vida Es Un Ratico world tour. Like Payne, he also fell in love with the SD Series' versatility and the multiband dynamics processing available on every channel.

This is so important when you are working with high channel counts, like we have on this tour, he comments. Our stage is clear of any speaker sources, which means everyone is on in-ear mixes. We are using 24 Shure PSM 1000s to handle all stereo wireless mixes and our drummer and MD/keyboard player are both using a wired stereo mix via Albatross Audio's PH9B headphone amp. We are carrying 8 x d&b M4 wedges for support acts and any guests that may perform during Taylor's set.

Everyone has a discreet stereo ear mix except for the dancers, who all share one ear mix. Scott, our band monitor engineer deals with the musicians, techs, dancers, and Pro Tools operator mixes. I deal with Taylor, four background vocalists, opening act Ed Sheeran (who also performs one song during Taylor's set) and any guest mixes that may come our way. The workload is split up nicely between the two consoles so that everyone onstage can receive the attention they need during soundchecks and performances. We are up to about 96 input channels from the stage (the majority of which are RF mics and instruments) and an additional 12 audience mics strategically placed around the arena for Pro Tools recordings. Taylor has four separate mi

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