“Neil has a way of getting the audience with him one way or another! He’s amazing at that.”
So declares sound designer/FOH engineer Stanley Miller, who would certainly know of such things. In what has to be some kind of record, Miller has embarked on yet another world tour for an astounding 47th year. Honored with a Parnelli Audio Innovator Award in 2009, and recently brought onto the Parnelli Board of Advisors, this is a guy with stamina. He’s the same age as Diamond (74), but as he has throughout his entire career, he continues to embrace and even push the cutting edge of new technology.
The tour kicked off Feb. 27 and wrapped up its North American run on May 31 at the Pepsi Center in Denver, with the world leg picking up a couple weeks later and going until November. And like previous outings, the 2015 tour will continue Miller’s tradition of audio excellence.
House of Yamaha
Miller has long been a devotee of the house of Yamaha, having consulted on some of the company’s most significant pro audio consoles. Now Miller is out with the new Yamaha CL5 V2, and says the Dante network-based console, that includes features like remote I/O and greatly expanded effects all simplify his task of bringing Diamond night after night of packed arena shows. The CL5 onboard effects rack now includes VCM analog circuitry modeling technology, plus a premium rack with Rupert Neve Design’s Portico 5033 EQ and 5043 compressor. An Ethernet connector supports data transfer at a rate of 100Mbps, and with Diamond’s big band, it’s much appreciated.
“This is my first tour with the CL5,” Miller says, having previously driven the band around on the Yamaha PM5D. He likes the CL5’s small footprint, despite handling 72 mono and eight stereo inputs. “It’s very programmable, and it can be controlled via an iPad, so I can walk around the venue and mix from anywhere if I need to.” At front of house, he uses a MacBook Pro with two screens connected to run it directly.
The system allows for all-hands-on-deck, literally. “Jonathan [Melton, system tech] can go in and make adjustments on the fly while I’m mixing the show. I tease him, because when I first asked him to join our team, that his job was to make me look good, and he does an amazing good job at that!” Miller adds that Melton has a degree in astrophysics. Asked whether that background helps Melton work with him, Miller replied “Yes, I bet it does!”
Miller notes while the Dante system had been used on previous tours, it wasn’t always beloved by the audio crew. “But now they have made a lot of improvements, and it’s now more plug-in friendly. It’s extremely reliable and sounds great.”
The audio team is using the two Riedel RockNets and a Yamaha DME for signal distribution. Signal processing is handled by two Lake LP4D12s and four dbx Drive Rack DR4800s.
While the configuration sometimes changes for specific venues, the main system typically consists of 16 VTX V25-II line array elements per side (L-R) with 12 VTX S28 subwoofers per side and a total of 64 VTX V20 loudspeakers for outfill and sidefill. In addition, 24 VerTec VT4886 loudspeakers provide reinforcement to the seating behind the stage. The system is powered with more than 100 Crown I-Tech 12000HD amplifiers for a total of 1.6 million watts of power.
Miller is pleased with the VTX V25-II system. “I’ve used VerTec systems for a long time, and this new version [VTX 25-II] is the best ever,” he says. “The rigging is much slicker and goes up faster, and the sound of the system is amazing.”
“Stan Miller has been a good friend for decades, and Sound Image has wanted to work with him on a Neil Diamond tour for many years, so I’m thrilled that this tour has given Stan the best system he has ever heard,” says Dave Shadoan, president of Sound Image, the soundco on the tour.
The VTX25-II line array system is monitored and controlled with JBL HiQnet Performance Manager software. Miller notes that during this course of this long tour they will play every kind of venue that exists with every kind of variable, so “it’s imperative for this show to sound its best in spite of the issues or idiosyncrasies each room may throw our way. There’s no question that arenas have their acoustic challenges, but no matter what we’re up against, this system delivers.”
Miller adds that he’s a tough customer when it comes to sound systems, having seen and heard it all. “This system is just head and shoulders above everything else,” he says. He credits crewmember John “Drano” Drane with the assistance of John “Haircut” Tompkins for expertly tuning them for every arena or outdoor theater they play. “The whole team is great — they know what I need every day and make it work. It’s such a pleasure to come down and sit behind the board and not have to fuss with things.”
It Takes Two
In addition to Diamond, there are a lot of players onstage: four horns, two guitars, two keyboards, two background singers, and bassist, percussionist and drummer.
Bernie Becker is the monitor/recording engineer taking care of them all, and while he’s been working with Diamond since 1989, it’s been mostly in a studio environment. When the monitor engineer spot opened up in the mid 1990’s, Miller talked Becker into coming out on the road. When he started, there were still wedges on the stage, something both he and Miller worked to eliminate.
Now everything goes direct — there is only an emergency monitor on stage in case something goes wrong. “Neil’s guitar players [Hadley Hockensmith and Doug Rhone] have worked hard to come up with sounds that are complementary, and they went through a number of guitar rigs before settling on a Kemper Profile modeling system,” Becker says. “The interesting thing is that they are originally made for electric guitars, but the guys are able to get a wonderful, warm acoustic guitar sound out of them. They really spend substantial time programming it.” A-Designs REDDI tube direct boxes and a Fractal Audio Systems processor also contribute to create a “huge warm sound guitar sound.”
Becker says they use Pro Tools to play the previous show back during sound check, so all the musicians can tweak their Aviom personal 16-channel mixers to get the mix they like.
The mix Becker sends to Diamond includes plenty of the crowd, which is picked up by a whopping 24 mics pointed out to the seats. Otherwise Diamond wants to hear it all in his head — the crowd, the individual horns, everything.
It all is channeled through two Yamaha CL1s, which Becker admits might seem unusual, but the CL5, CL3 or anything else wasn’t a good fit. With the two CL1s, he has a total of six slots for digital cards in the back, something he uses all of. And like Miller, he too was only recently won over to the Dante camp, and now says it can’t be beat. He does note the whole system had a fairly steep learning curve, but thinks this systems offers “mastering room” quality.
A More Introspective Show
All the mics are from AKG. “It’s because they make the best mics in the world!” Miller declares. He’s got four 414s on the horns and some more over the drums. A c 430 is on the high-hat and a D40 is on the snare, with a D12VR on the kick drums. The wireless mics are AKG’s DMS 700 series and the IEM hardware is all AKG IVM 4500 series.
Diamond “is like any other artist and has his own version of what works for him,” Becker adds. “We worked really hard over the years to find a really good microphone that works for his voice, and the AKG wireless system with a AKG D5 head does just that. It’s a dynamic mic, not a condenser, and sounds really warm, yet can take a bite during his rock and roll songs.”
When it is pointed out that some of these are traditionally considered studio mics and by nature tend to not stand up to the harsh realities of the road, Miller quickly agrees. “The crew takes very good loving care of them, and if they don’t, I slap them around!” He laughs. “But these mics are all really good and carefully chosen. We don’t take things out on the road we don’t want, and we want these.”
After this U.S. run, the whole system will be laden onto a cargo ship to Australia for that leg of the tour in the fall. For the European wing, working with Sound Image who is supplying the audio gear for the entire world tour, they’ll be a JBL system waiting for them exactly like the one he is using now. “Sound Image is sending a guy there early to make sure the system is ready to rock, so that when we unload it out of the truck, it works the way we want it to.”
The FOH Workflow
Miller’s approach to his job is by his own admission unusual. During the weeks of rehearsals, he carefully stores the “scenes” (songs) and assigns MIDI program change numbers to them. Listening to the songs through the JBL LSR305 powered studio monitors he takes with him on the road, Miller diligently hones each song to almost recording-studio perfection. “The work is done there in rehearsal, and then when we’re in a venue, we pull up that scene and make minor changes during the show as needed,” he explains.
Miller is very much enjoying himself once again. “He’s doing some songs from his new album Melody Road, which are wonderful. Then of course a lot of old stuff comes up and it makes for a very pleasant two-hour show with no intermission.”
But it’s a special show: “Neil has always been a private person, but on this tour he’s a little more introspective and is sharing more with the audience.” His parents happened to take a lot of 8mm film of him as a kid, and he has put some of that up on the screen during the song “Brooklyn Roads,” which is certainly is an emotional highlight of the show. “Almost every night there are the magic moments — I’ll never get tired of it!”
For Miller, it all comes down to delivering the very best for the fans. As noted, he considers himself a “tough customer” when it comes to sound systems, who has “seen it all and heard it all. When I say this is the best system I’ve ever used, I mean it. The truth is we never stop working to make the show the most enjoyable for the fans that have stuck by all these years. And then again, what else would we do, sit at home and only wish we could continue to bring joy to the audience.”
For more on Stanley Miller, see FRONT of HOUSE, June 2015, page 44, or CLICK HERE
CREW
Sound Company: Sound Image
Sound Designer/FOH Engineer: Stanley Miller
Monitor/Recording Engineer: Bernie Becker
FOH System Tech: Jonathan Melton
Senior System Engineer: John Drane
Crew Chief, Monitor/RF Tech: Greg “Chico” Lopez
Stage Sound Tech: Scott Lawhead
P.A. Techs: John “Haircut” Tompkins, Wayne ”Chan” Teaster
Arch Angel Studio Manager & Archivist: Sam Cole
Backline Techs: Peter Danilowicz (keys), Dave Wright (drums), Dave Rapp (horns), Kit Charlton (guitars)
GEAR
P.A. SYSTEM
Mains: (32) JBL VTX-25-II in L/R hangs of 16 each
Behind Stage Coverage: (24) JBL VerTec VT4886
Out Fill/Side Fill Speakers: (64) JBL VTX V20
Subwoofers: (24) JBL VTX-S28 (12 per side)
Amplification: Crown I-Tech 12000HD
System Control: (4) dbx DR-4800; (2) Dolby Lake LP4D12
FOH GEAR
FOH Console: Yamaha CL5
FOH Monitors: JBL LSR305’s
Analysis/Control Software: JBL HiQnet Performance Manager; Rational Acoustics Smaart 7
Signal Distro: Riedel RockNet; Yamaha DME
MONITOR GEAR
Monitor Consoles: (2) Yamaha CL1’s
Outboard: (3) TL Audio Ebony preamp/processors; dbx 160SL
Recording: Avid Pro Tools | HD
Digital Clocking: Antelope Audio Isochrone Trinity, Isochrone M10 Rubidium Atomic Clock
IEM Hardware: AKG IVM 4500
Personal Monitor Mixers: Aviom A320’s
Mics: AKG D12VT, D40, D5, C-414s, 430, 518s
Wireless Mics: AKG DMX 700 series
D.I. Boxes: A-Designs REDDI tube direct boxes
