Katy Perry rose to fame with her 2008 single, “I Kissed a Girl.” Her 2010 album, Teenage Dream, which debuted at number one, included five number one hits (with a sixth on the way up) — a feat matched only by Michael Jackson’s Bad. She is also the first artist in history to spend 52 weeks in the top 10.
This year’s California Dreams 123-show tour began in Europe in February, ending in the U.K. in April, with May spent in Japan and “Down Under.” The summer North American leg stopped at 51 cities from June to September, returning to the U.K. in October to hit a dozen arenas after a side trip to South America for “Rock in Rio.” The tour’s last scheduled date was at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and a final show was added — with free admission — the night before Thanksgiving, called “Katy Perry Gives Thanks.”
Perry’s concert has been called a “jukebox musical,” with a storyline about a butcher’s assistant following her cat “Kitty Purry” through “Candyland” in pursuit of “the baker’s boy,” performed in quirky, outlandish outfits on a stage with a candy cane staircase, giant lollipops and cotton candy video clouds above.
The Console
Peter Keppler mixes the show on an Avid VENUE Profile. He’s equally comfortable in a studio control room as at Front of House, having recorded at Long View Farms and NYC’s Hit Factory and Looking Glass Studios. Previous tour credits include Steve Earle, The Eels, David Bowie’s Heathen and Reality Tours — which he mixed on a PM1D — and Nine Inch Nails, where he made the switch to the Profile, as Trent Reznor was an early VENUE artist. I personally go back to “Square One” with Keppler, having known him longer than anyone in live sound, as we both started in Northampton, MA, working at Sun Sound Audio and hauling our own respective PAs down the stairs of Sheehan’s Cafe.
The Speakers
The Clair arena system on the tour’s final two-week run in the U.S. consists of 14-box main hangs of i5 and double i5B line arrays, with 8-box i5 side arrays and 4-box R4s to cover the last upstage section of seats, always a process with sold-out shows. A half-dozen BT 218 dual-eighteen “Bow Tie” subs are ground-stacked on each side of the stage below the mains in two 3-box columns, whose height helps three P2 front-fills fire over the standing audience. The system is powered by Lab.gruppen PLM series amps in Clair’s tour-standard StakRaks. System engineer Jason Vrobel also served on Paul “Pab” Boothroyd’s Paul McCartney and AC/DC tours.
Keppler stopped in mid-interview to talk about the new Clair i5 “D” prototype system that was on their three-month U.S. summer tour. Before that, it was with Bon Jovi and Roger Waters. The i5D is a 450-pound enclosure, and the rigging has been completely redesigned from the original i5 system to accommodate the size and weight. It is loaded similarly to an S4 with dual 18s, quad tens and quad 2-inch drivers. Keppler calls it the first true full-range line array box, adding that “it sounds amazing, even in the upper rear of an arena bowl, where it still delivers full impact at all frequencies, especially the low end.”
The Mics
A remarkable feature on the tour are Perry’s Sennheiser SKM 5200-II wireless handheld mics, equipped with an MD 5235 capsules and covered in crystals by Erin LaReau, who started as “bling technician” and has since become the tour’s head of wardrobe, a daunting task in light of the show’s spectacular costume changes. There are four separate handheld mics, each decorated differently to match her wardrobe in each part of the show.
“With the 5235, Katy’s voice has never sounded better,” Keppler notes. “The high end is open and clear and the overall timbre is well balanced.” Balance is especially important for the times when she’s on the downstage thrust, especially on “Pearl,” when she’s lifted 15 feet into the air, putting her right into the PA’s coverage.
Perry also spends a third of the show singing on a DPA 4088 miniature cardioid headband mic, based on the original DPA 4066 omni, but extending 3mm to the corner of the mouth. It’s used during the ballad, “Thinking of You,” when she flies through the air on a cotton candy cloud playing acoustic guitar and is completely in front of the sound system, providing Keppler with a tense moment.
Naturally, the 4088 is fitted to a Sennheiser SK 5212 miniature transmitter, and all her mics employ Sennheiser’s next-generation EM 3732-II receivers, which use digitally-synthesized companding for reduced artifacts and natural sound. For monitoring, the show relies on 12 Sennheiser SR 2050 IEM transmitters — 10 in the A range and two in the G range — that work as spares.
Screaming Teens
Though the show enjoys a wide demographic, a core fan base of young girls provide the usual pop singer mixing challenge of fighting against a 2 kHz wash of screaming teens at moments. Rather than trying to get on top, Keppler settles for gently pushing and waiting it out, a technique gleaned from seasoned “pop-tart” engineers, but at times, the screaming resembles feedback — disconcerting when the singer is in front of the PA.
Keppler employs a variety of drum mics on Adam Marcello’s custom-made Q-Drums kits (fabricated by Jeremy Berman, owner of Q-Drums and also the tour’s drum tech), including a Sennheiser e902 and e901 on the kick drum and e904s on the rack toms. A trick he learned from Music Mix Mobile’s John Harris is miking the floor tom with a large-format kick mic, where he uses a second e902. Sennheiser e914 condensers are used for overheads, and due to their sound and small profile, Shure KSM137 pencil condensers were chosen for ride cymbal as well on hi-hats. Another pair of KSM137s are used at FOH for audience recording mics.
Telefunken M80s have replaced the SM57 on snare, and the KSM32 on the guitar cabinets, though the other mic on Casey Hooper’s Matchless combo amp is still an SM57, which Keppler pans 50 percent. “Anything an SM57 sounds good on sounds better with an M80,” Keppler adds. “It’s a little fatter and more airy.” Typical for many Clair tours, Radial Engineering JDIs are used on all the line-level instruments.
Keppler favors a pair of Genelec 1031a reference monitors over headphones at Front of House. “When you’re mixing a live show, it’s cumbersome to put headphones on to check an input, it changes the acoustic space your ears are in and takes valuable time away from mixing.”
Processing
Keppler uses a variety of plugins, including Sound Performance Lab (SPL) and Waves’ Mercury bundle on his Profile, which is configured for 64 channels, with 46 inputs coming from the stage. He uses Waves’ TruVerb reverb on the snare and toms and Smack! on the drums. He uses SPL Twin Tube’s modeled harmonics and saturation effects on various DI instruments, particularly the electric bass DI. “It adds a certain ‘life’ to the bass that I can’t get with an EQ, and I really like the ability to tune the upper harmonics.”
He also uses SPL EQ Rangers’ application-specific Bass Ranger modeled passive graphic EQ on bass and key bass, as well as Waves’ Ren-Desser on bass to control slapping. He uses Serato’s Rane Series dynamic EQ on vocals, along with Waves C4, which he also uses on acoustic guitars along with Crane Song’s Phoenix, which he also uses on some of the drums. Lastly, he also uses McDSP’s MC2000 multi-band compressor on keyboards.
Monitors
Mixing monitors on a Yamaha PM5D, clocked by an Apogee Big Ben, tucked under the stage, is Manny Barajas from the Rat Sound family. He got his break mixing monitors in 2009 when The Mars Volta asked him to mix monitors for them. He’s assisted on stage by monitor tech Danny Badorine. Special credit goes to tour production manager Jay Schmit, who has taken California Dreams around the world twice from theaters to arenas and beyond.
