Headlining the fourth night of this year’s Rock In Rio (Lisboa) festival, Stevie Wonder used three DiGiCo SD7 consoles, ensuring that his sound didn’t rely on any Superstition.
Playing a mixture of hits and cover versions to an audience of over 75,000, Stevie Wonder himself requested the three SD7s – one for Front of House, one for vocal an in-ear monitors and the third for band monitors.
Supplied (along with the rest of the festival’s audio system) by Brazilian rental company Gabisom Audio Equipment, Stevie Wonder’s set included over 80 inputs with each SD7 having two dedicated SD-Racks.
The FoH console was on a redundant Optocore loop, with the monitors on redundant MADI. All SD7s were dual redundant mirrored engines (audio and control), which assured total permanent redundancy.
“When Stevie made the jump from analogue to digital, the SD7 was the ideal choice because it’s the digital console that sounds closest to the analogue console he was using before,” says Wonder’s FoH engineer. “All other digital consoles sounded and felt very much like computers.”
“Having Stevie Wonder personally ask for three SD7s for his Rock In Rio performance was a real endorsement of the console’s standing within both the artist and technical production communities,” says Ian Staddon, DiGiCo vice-president of sales. “Gabisom bought the third SD7 specifically for this show, which shows a fantastic commitment to DiGiCo.”
