Greetings from Ancona, Italy, located on the beautiful coast of the Adriatic Sea! This latest installment of this column is the twelfth of these reviews describing my experiences with Waves plugins. This year seems to have gone by very rapidly.
And what am I doing in this charming Italian city? I have returned to mixing James Taylor and his band of masterful musicians as we travel up and down this historic peninsula. We have even had the privilege of visiting the islands of Sicily and Sardinia while bringing the music of James Taylor to many of the smaller Italian cities not often visited by U.S. touring acts.
The band for this tour consists only of James, Larry Goldings (Jeff Babko for the first three weeks) on keyboards, Jimmy Johnson on bass and Steve Gadd on drums. All the players are formidable talents and represent a huge aural treat for the audiences. At the end of previous column, I spoke about trying the Waves Renaissance Reverb as the drum reverb for Steve. Well… I have done exactly that, and actually doubled my resources, by configuring one as a dedicated snare reverb and another as a reverb solely for toms.
A Light Touch
Steve Gadd is the most expressive and dynamic drummer I know, and any attempt to reinterpret or dramatically color his sound would be counterproductive in these particularly sparse musical circumstances. When we worked together in Paul Simon’s touring band, I was often trying to recreate many of Roy Halee’s in-studio drum sounds. Roy is a brilliant engineer, and his signature snare sounds, as heard on “The Boxer,” or tom sounds, as heard on “You Can Call Me Al,” are legendary audio art. Several digital devices utilizing a couple of dozen different algorithms were always necessary in the outboard rack to produce the desired results.
Before this tour, I had again entertained the idea of using several reverb algorithms that would change with the various song snapshots. However, the sheer simplicity of this musical presentation made that concept both unnecessary and inappropriate. The gentlest addition of subtle ambience enhancement was the proper way to approach adding a touch of sparkle to this show. I therefore found myself loading up the Renaissance Reverb with the Plate 1, Variation 4 algorithm that had served me so well as a super-transparent horn and background vocal reverb in previous applications.
Optimizing this algorithm for snare was the first task. I don’t have the benefit of carrying a Pro Tools rig on this particular tour, so everything had to be done on the fly. Although we did rehearse for a week at Mr. Taylor’s barn in Lenox, MA, we did not have the luxury of any rehearsal days before the first show in Napoli. Everything I set up in the U.S. was done using only Tannoy near-field monitors. Hearing the reverb sound integrated with a real performance hall only occurred on that first show day.
The great thing about our crew is that we are mostly musicians. Scott Hoffman, Steve’s drum tech, is an excellent drummer. He has played for .38 Special, Jerry Douglas and O-Town. Scott even sat in for Steve on a few James Taylor shows when Steve had to briefly leave the tour. It’s easy to get a great drum sound at line check with such an experienced and versatile player on the crew.
Barn vs. Stage
In an environment that was substantially more live than the barn rehearsal room, the first thing I needed to do with the snare reverb was to shorten the decay time. Then I eased up on the diffusion, lowered the plate size and reduced the level of the early reflections. Next, I readjusted the reverb damping and reverb EQ. This entire operation took seconds — literally — seconds. Because the Renaissance Reverb presents an interface that is so user-friendly, I was able to reconfigure both the snare reverb and the tom reverb with Scott providing the sound sources.
The Plate 1 algorithm has now served me well on three tours and in three separate applications. Beginning from this same starting point, I have been able to create spaciousness around horns, depth and definition for background vocals, and articulation and sparkle for drums. Since the first show here in Italy, I have fine-tuned both the snare and tom reverbs within individual song snapshots. The tom reverb has a longer decay, more early reflections and uses a greater plate size. It also emphasizes the low end a bit more with less overall high frequencies in the EQ. The accompanying screen shots show my base programs for both the snare and tom reverbs.
For example, the tom fills in “Fire and Rain” require a little longer pre-delay and a longer decay time. The drum solo in “Country Road” benefits from a little more bottom end on both the snare and tom reverbs. The Renaissance Reverb interface gives me an easy-to-read, immediate visual reference for numerical value changes on the sliders, and a click-and-drag graphical representation of the pre-emphasis and EQ curves. All parameters are on the same page and are large enough to easily read in a dark show environment.
The software on the Avid VENUE Profile console that I use allows me to easily attach modified program parameters from any plugin to each of the individual song snapshots. The large and prominently placed LCD display one can use with a VENUE console also aids in rapid and accurate on-the-fly programming. It took only three shows to be completely satisfied with snare and tom reverb programming.
This delicate approach to drum reverbs has worked extremely well in the great sounding, intimate halls we have encountered on this Italian tour. On the next European tour leg, we will be playing in some larger venues, but with the same band personnel. I don’t anticipate substantially altering the drum sound. When we return to shows in the U.S. in June, the band will expand to its largest version. At that time, I plan to explore different algorithms within the Renaissance Reverb platform to add a bit more uniqueness to each song. But, then again, with the incomparable Steve Gadd playing the drums, does anyone really notice the engineer?
Arrivederci!
