Manned by Richard Sharratt, the DiGiCo SD7 was supplied, along with the rest of the audio rig, by Britannia Row. After rehearsals in Shepperton and a Paris warm-up gig, the tour took in dates at Paris Bercy, the Berlin O2, London O2 Arena, Montreal Bell Centre, New York Radio City Music Hall and finally LA's Hollywood Bowl.
With 10 first violins, 10 second violins, eight violas, eight cellos and four basses comprising the string section alone, the channel count was inevitably high.
"All the strings had Schoeps CMC5/MK4 microphones. In addition, the violins and violas had an individual DPA 4060, the cellos and basses also having Schertler Dyn C and Dyn B pickups," says Sharratt. "On top of that were mics for the woodwind, brass, piano, percussion, Peter's vocals and three backing singers. Once added to all the reverb channels, CD playback and stuff I was up to 130 inputs in total, which only the SD7 can handle.
To mix the show, Sharratt set up snapshots for each song, using them for mutes, pans, aux sends and fader level and also reassigning control groups and changing reverbs (both onboard and externally by midi) but from there he mixed the show on the fly, having to react to the ever-changing dynamics of the orchestra and Peter Gabriel.
"The arrangements were so dynamic, from tiny to enormous, that finding room for the vocals on top was a definite challenge," he says. "The SD7 was great because there were so many inputs, so many groups, auxes and matrixes. I had all the faders I needed with 24 control groups in front of me for each song. It all worked really well."
(Jim Evans)
