Helen Folasade Adu is widely known by the same name as her band, Sade, and both are on a worldwide tour, on the heels of this year's Ultimate Collection. Last year's Soldier of Love – recorded at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios and only their sixth studio album in a quarter-century – debuted at number one and earned their fourth Grammy. It's been a decade since their last tour, but Sade is selling out arenas. The North American leg launched June 16 in Baltimore and winds up September 12 in Norfolk.
Mixing the show is Chris Madden, a first-call British engineer who spent half a career in U.K. studios before moving over to live sound with the Waterboys, soon moving from monitors to FOH. He also mixed Sugababes and then Joe Cocker, who shared management with Pink, on whose 2008-2010 Funhouse world tour he worked on prior to Sade.
Once again he's using an Avid VENUE console, which "Pab" Boothroyd turned him on to in 2005 and has been using since. "I only had a short time with the desk before taking it on tour, but it was more than enough," he comments. "It's such an analog-based workflow, I had no trouble transitioning to VENUE.
"With Sade, I'm using up to 80 channels," he continues. "I do use snapshots, but in a very subtle way. I build the snapshots gradually. I bring in a few faders, then I bring in some effects, like my reverb, and then I set things in a sort of ballpark range. Then, when I recall a scene, I'll fine-tune it very gently from there as the band plays. I don't set everything to an exact setting or level, but over the course of a few shows, there are certain moves I just anticipate.
"For example, with some tunes, we know that the crowd will react a certain way to some parts," Madden adds. "Like with some songs, they will get excited at the beginning, so I'll have the levels set a bit higher, then back them off a bit once the crowd calms down. So I might create a snapshot that's a bit louder to start the song off, then a second one that backs the level off a few dBs. It's all very minimal, very gentle, subtle changes, and you don't even notice it's happening."
Madden calls upon a range of onboard plugins he uses regularly, including the TL Space reverb, Fairchild and Bomb Factory BF-3A compressors and a Softube Trident A-Range EQ. He also cites Virtual Soundcheck as a feature that comes in handy for setting up a basic mix layout when time and schedules are tight.
Black Box
When Berlin's Black Box Music (BBM) purchased their original L-Acoustics K1 system in 2009, it was the first in Germany. BBM were also one of the first to invest in a second K1 system, bought late last spring for Rammstein's European tour, and now out on Sade. This gives BBM a total of 96 K1 boxes, raising their inventory of L-Acoustics to over 700 cabinets.
Sade's system is configured as main arrays of 14 L-Acoustic K1s with six dV-DOSCs under-hung per side, plus six K1-SBs flown next to each main array on the outside. Side-hangs of up to18 KUDO are used, with additional KUDO available for a rear hang, plus occasional extra ground-stacked KUDO. Sixteen SB28 subs are laid low in a line across the 60-foot front of the stage, with several near the center employed in a cardioid configuration. Four KIVA used as front fills hide behind the stage's front scrim, with the entire system powered by 14 LA8 racks. Solotech supplied some of the enclosures, while others were rented from Clearwing, which also provided audio technician Andre St. Pierre, who continues with the tour when they return to Europe in November.
Beneath the console are two Dolby Lake Processors. One DLP handles the main K1 L/R and outside KUDO L/R arrays, while the second DLP processes the subs, ground stacks, front fills and whatever house feed becomes necessary.
BBM system engineer Dave Dixon is also the crew chief and is also assisted by audio techs Klaus Bolender and Bjoern Bornecke. When the tour travels to South America next month, they'll simply take their universal package of consoles, mics and wireless and likely use Loudness Sonorização of São Paulo, who have been in the K1 Pilot Program since January of last year, and when they go down under, they're sure to use Jands.
Monitor tech Ben Byford assists monitor mixer Horst Hartmann, who toured with Madden on Pink. Hartmann mixes on a Yamaha PM5D with a PM5D-EX expander, bringing it up to 96 channels to match Madden's VENUE, and uses 16 stereo channels of Sennheiser's new 2000 Series wireless personal monitors – 12 for the musicians, with the remaining four reserved for Hartmann and technicians. "I trust the 2000 Series to travel the world without trouble," he adds.
Clean Stage
Each musician rises up on a platform from below the stage to be profiled against a screen, requiring Hartmann and Madden to employ a clean aesthetic for the stage. To eliminate mic stands, they rely on miniature Sennheiser e 908 gooseneck microphones and below-decks backline amps.
"The Sennheiser e 908 is in use all over the place," said Hartmann. "It can clip on almost anywhere and capture just about anything with realism." The Sennheiser e 908 is placed on hi-hat, under each of seven separate cymbals, as well as on each of three congas and clipped to the saxophone.
On the rest of the drum kit, five Sennheiser e 904s clip onto three toms and the top and bottom of the snare. In the kick drum, they use a Kelly SHU mic suspension, a horseshoe-shaped device suspended in the drum by a half-dozen short bungees to hold a Sennheiser e 902 consistently in the drum's sweet spot.
In keeping with the clean look, all five backline amps are located under the stage, each miked with Sennheiser's new MK 4. "The MK 4 sounds great, by which I mean the sound at the board is a perfect sonic image of the amp itself," Madden said. "It is a very true representation."
Just as Sennheiser came up with a custom single-ear mic for Pink to wear on their previous tour, they helped find a substitute for the SM57 that Sade was accustomed to singing into. While Sade uses Sennheiser's SKM 5200 hand-held transmitter, it has been fitted with the same 904 capsule found in the snare and tom mics. Madden comments that it sounds a bit strange, but "when she sings into it, it really works well." The background singers, meanwhile, both use standard MD 5235 dynamic capsules.
"I have to say," says Madden, "Sade's voice through this Sennheiser SKM 5200 transmitter with the cardioid dynamic capsule is fantastic and it is perfectly suited to her." Keyboard backing vocals use a wired Sennheiser e 935. Seven Sennheiser e 825-S with silent ON/OFF switches provide talkback at strategic locations around the stage and at the FOH and monitoring positions.
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