After literally shivering my way through the National Christmas Tree Lighting in Washington DC, I jumped into a rental car on the following morning and headed up I-83 North toward Lititz, PA. My final destination was the headquarters of Clair Global. Once there, I would spend two quick days in the shop prepping for an upcoming show at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. This holiday event was produced by CBS Radio and featured individual performances by Sarah McLachlan, Jimmy Buffett and James Taylor.
When I was first informed about the project, it sounded like a great lineup of talent, and I was eagerly looking forward to participating. It would have been a simple task to set up the DiGiCo SD5 FOH console by adapting my show files from our final 2016 tour stop in August. As far as I was initially aware, the only significant changes would be adding a few extra inputs to accommodate Jimmy Buffett and Sarah McLachlan appearing as guests with our band. It was then a matter of determining whether the bands would be mixed by their own engineers and consoles or if we would share one desk and work as a team.
It’s Complicated
As seems to be the case with all one-off events, any anticipation of a simple pre-show preparation ended up falling victim to the actual story. Very soon, the planning for this show became far more complicated. The first surprising bit of news informed us that the James Taylor All-Star Band would not be performing on this occasion. Keyboardist Larry Goldings would be the only member of the touring band included in this smaller performance unit. This past year’s show files now seemed far less helpful:
- James Taylor, Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
- Kim Taylor, Vocals
- Arnold McCuller, Vocals
- Kate Markowitz, Vocals
- Owen Young, Cello
- Larry Goldings, Piano, Keys & Accordion
- Jon Suters, Bass
- Nick Halley, Drums/Percussion
I had worked one show with cellist Owen Young playing in the band, but that was more than five years ago. However, I had no experience with the other two musicians who would fill out the band in Brooklyn. While I was at home recovering from shoulder surgery, this particular group of musicians had been out performing with James Taylor at many of the Hillary Clinton campaign events during the autumn. I was looking forward to hearing the arrangements that they had worked out. Two days of rehearsal were scheduled with the band in New York, during which I hoped to learn the new material. This unit produced a very different collective sound, and there was much to absorb in the arrangements of the songs selected for a 75-minute set.
Monitor Shift
The second surprising revelation was that Rachel Adkins would be unavailable to mix monitors at this event. Rachel has spent the past five years at monitor beach on every James Taylor tour, and she would be missed. However, Clair Global was able to secure the services of Bruce Springsteen’s monitor engineer, Monty Carlo, whose talents came highly recommended. We were extremely lucky to have Monty join us, and his contribution was invaluable from his very first day on the job. Monty hit the road running, and interfaced with the other bands’ monitor engineers while I opened a dialog with Rich Davis, FOH engineer for Jimmy Buffett, and Dan Cleland, Sarah McLachlan’s FOH engineer.
Production also made us aware that the three artists, accompanied by their own musicians, would be performing in separate sets. Early in our discussions, it was determined that there would be additional consoles supplied at FOH and monitors to mix the Jimmy Buffett set. My choice at FOH was the DiGiCo SD5 while Rich Davis chose an Avid VENUE Profile. Dan Cleland would share the SD5 with me for Sarah McLachlan’s set. Monty Carlo elected to use an Avid VENUE Profile to mix monitors for both the James Taylor and Sarah McLachlan sets, while Bill Szocska chose a Yamaha PM5D as the monitor desk for Jimmy Buffett. We were also alerted to the probability that each principal artist would appear as a guest in the other’s two sets.
Bring On the Input List!
The guest appearance issue initiated a period of accelerated growth. By the time the dust had settled, the new format required every input to appear on each console so that the bands could randomly cherry pick musicians and instruments from the other aggregations. At this point, we engineers were grateful that we had chosen to work on digital platforms. The total input count would be constrained by the limit of 96 imposed by both the Profile and PM5D operating systems. The input capability of the DiGiCo SD5 with the StealthCore 2 upgrade now stands at 253 and would not be a factor at all.
In any case, we didn’t expect to approach the 96-input limit, because each performer would be using a cut-down, mostly acoustic band for this show. The James Taylor input count stood at 38; Jimmy Buffett’s band required 27 inputs; and Sarah McLachlan’s trio was trimmed down to 17 inputs. The task at hand was now focused far more on the organizational side than the artistic. It was very apparent that adapting a SD5 show file from our previous tour archives was a poor strategy. It made more sense to start from scratch and import only preset data from SD5 tour files. Once again, I experienced a brief moment of appreciation for the layout flexibility and recall agility that digital platforms provide.
I set to work creating a console layout that would accomplish the goal of the producers and artists — to be able to easily exchange or interchange any of the musicians and/or singers from the any of the groups. This concept could quickly result in chaos if the various inputs and their redundant iterations did not fall into a logical work flow. The SD5 console surface provides a total of 36 fader handles arranged horizontally into three groups of 12. I prefer to mix with inputs appearing on the left and right blocks of faders, and with DCAs plus outputs located in the center section. I always avoid using any spill functions for this type of show to minimize confusion on the control surface.
The SD5 surface presents three individual Layers within a dedicated block of 12 faders. Each of these Layers contains five selectable Banks on the left and right blocks and four selectable Banks in the center section. It made the most sense to place all the inputs on Layer 1 of the fader blocks and use all five Banks within that Layer. The SD5 also possesses incredible input handling agility. Any input from the SD Racks on the stage can be assigned to any of the 12 faders located in any of five Banks within any of three Layers in any of the three Fader Blocks.
Any input may be mono or stereo. Additionally, a single input can be assigned to multiple faders either as a duplicate via the Copy Input command or as a clone via the Assign Fader command. A duplicated input follows changes to the original. A cloned input derives its signal from the same head amp but is equalized, adjusted, assigned or bused independently. For example, at the first fader position in the right block of 12 faders, I created duplicates of James Taylor’s main vocal mic in the first two Banks of Layer 1. Any changes I made at either position would appear at the other.
I also cloned the same James Vocal input onto the right block of Bank 4 that was dedicated to the Sarah McLachlan group inputs. This choice allowed me to independently alter that input’s parameters without any changes being transferred to the James Vocal channels already appearing on Banks 1 and 2. Using the same cloning method, I also assigned James’ two acoustic guitar inputs, the James Taylor acoustic piano inputs and the three James Taylor background vocal inputs to Sarah McLachlan’s dedicated Bank 4. The independence of the clones also enabled the assignment of all inputs on Bank 4 Left & Right to separate DCAs within the 13 through 24 Bank of Control Groups (DCAs). All operations performed on Bank 4 inputs were therefore exclusively confined to the Sarah McLachlan set.
I employed the same methods to create vocal input clones of Jimmy Buffett, Sarah McLachlan and Mac McAnally on Banks 1 and 2 that were dedicated to James Taylor inputs. Bank 1 Left contained all James Taylor drums and percussion. Bank 1 Right contained all James Taylor band vocals, guest vocals and duplicates of the Main Vocal and B/G Vocal reverb returns. Bank 2 Left contained all of the James Taylor band instruments. Bank 2 Right contained all of the instruments played by James plus clones of the acoustic guitars played by Sarah, Jimmy and Mac. All of the Jimmy Buffet inputs fit perfectly on Bank 3 Left and Right. Bank 5 Left contained ten stereo return channels from the various vocal and instrument effects coming from either Waves plug-ins or the DiGiCo onboard effects.
A Few Useful Shortcuts
I have become accustomed to using the center section Quick Keys and the Macro function on the DiGiCo SD5 rather than using Snapshots to perform many of the recall functions on the console. For example, when I need to turn on Larry Goldings’ accordion mic, I want to mute all other keyboard inputs. The Macro function allows me to use one Macro button to toggle between two separate scripts. The result is a single large button that mutes all keys when the accordion is “On” and opens all keys when the accordion is “Off.”
Using Macros instead of Snapshots ensures that only the scripted events occur and there are no surprises initiated by improperly programming the recall scope in a given snapshot. Parameter errors in the recall scope of snapshots are all too common when one is trying to work at the rapid pace required for programming a one-off show. I have seen many engineers get into serious trouble because there wasn’t time to fully troubleshoot multiple snapshots. The 40 (four banks of ten) Quick Keys on the SD5 offer ample space for scripting changes during the show.
The programming agility of the SD5 shone brightly during the show. We moved seamlessly from act to act, and the various guest appearances occurring within the performance presented no problems at all. During the James Taylor set, we were able to “borrow” steel drums and percussion from the Jimmy Buffett inputs on fader Bank 3 by placing them under control of DCAs included in the 1-to-12 Control Group Bank in the center section of the console that was dedicated to the James Taylor set. Jimmy and Mac joined James for “Mexico,” and Sarah joined the ensemble at the close of the show for “How Sweet It Is” and “Auld Lang Syne.” It was a great night mixing on Clair’s amazing Cohesion-12 system!
Happy New Year and Safe Travels!
