Sold-out across several continents, Madonna’s MDNA Tour is taking her 11 musicians and 22 dancers around a succession of stadia and arenas. Along with costume changes, lighting effects and ground-breaking graphics, the tour’s audio system includes two DiGiCo SD7s – one at FOH and another on monitors.
The SD7 represents a step up for monitor engineers Matt Napier and Sean Speuhler, who were using a D5T on Madonna’s previous Sticky & Sweet Tour. ‘There are two of us because Sean exclusively mixes Madonna’s vocals and her vocal effects, all of which she insists be done live,’ Napier explains. ‘We effectively share the console – I use the SD7’s control surface and Sean uses an EX-007 expander unit to mix on.’
In total the SD7 has 114 inputs coming in from the stage rack. including effects, Matt is using 100 channels with Sean adding 30 more: ‘I think the SD7 is the only desk that can handle the amount of inputs and outputs we’ve got,’ Napier says. ‘In terms of surface channels on the desk, we’ve got about 160. In terms of outputs, I know there are over 50 mono sends by the time we take into account the musicians, dancers, side fills, subs, speakers for the MD, feeds for the video and recording. I don’t think there is anything else available that could do it.
‘Because Madonna is running on the left right buss, I’m using VCAs and groups to control and mix various elements for her. All of the music is routed through a group, which is delayed as she walks down the catwalk. When she uses the catwalk, everything other than her vocals is incrementally delayed up to a maximum of 30ms. It’s a 60-ft catwalk, but doing this acoustically reduces the length of the catwalk by about 30 feet, which helps her significantly.’
Tim Colvard is mixing the house sound alongside Mark Brnich (of the tour’s sound company Eighth Day Sound). A DiGiCo user since 2003, his use of dual SD7s on Madonna’s Sticky & Sweet Tour was an unqualified success, making a similar set-up an obvious choice for this tour. The two SD7s are networked and mirrored, giving full digital redundancy – and peace of mind.
On mic...
Essential to the stage set-up is a large Sennheiser microphone and RF system, with Madonna using six SKM 5200 mics for each show.
‘The 5200s get a real battering,’ Napier says. ‘The whole first section of the show is highly stylised with an almost comic book aggression. There is, a lot of staged violence and the microphones get hurled around and are frequently being thrown to and from dancers and onto the floor.
‘We’re going through a new microphone every ten shows or so but, given that the 5200 is not a microphone designed for such abuse, I think they are standing up remarkably well. Of course we have a whole drawer of spares from Sennheiser...’
The tour uses six further 5200s with MD 5005 capsules for backing and guest vocal microphones. Together with Madonna’s vocal mics, these are paired with 12 MkII 3732 wireless receivers. Fourteen 2000 series wireless systems are used for in-ear monitors, with 14 more for guitar systems. In addition, the band’s percussion trio uses SKP 2000 plug in transmitters, taking the overall wireless channel count to around 50.
‘The plug-in transmitters are a very useful solution, because the trio comes on stage, does its section and goes off again,’ napier explains. ‘There’s no time to cable the musicians up. It’s a very neat way of using RF. On top of everything else, there is also a wireless comms system, so we are probably up to 70 channels of RF at each show – and we have had no problems at all.
‘MDNA runs through December this year, finishing in South America,’ Napier says. ‘Everything is working really well so far – and that’s exactly what you need on such a long-running tour.’
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