Sound Company
House Supplied
Venue
Various (Tour)
Crew
- FOH Engineer: Jon Januhowski
- Tour Manager: Ari Fouriezos
- Production Manager, Lighting/Audio Assistant: Mark Balderson
- Show Design & Direction: Caroline Rose
Gear
FOH
- Console: Midas Pro2c
- Speakers: Various (Venue Supplied)
MON
- Wireless: JH Audio (IEMs), Shure PSM300s/1000s
- Mics: Vocals: Shure KSM8 (lead vocals), Sennheiser e935, Shure Beta 57A, E-V ND96; guitar amp: Shure SM53; bass amp: DI online; kick drum: Shure Beta91 (in), Sennheiser e902 (out); snare: beyerdynamic m201 (top), Sennheiser e904 (bottom); toms: Sennheiser e904, Audix D6; hi-hat: Sennheiser e614; overheads: Shure KSM 137
Tour Details:
Singer/songwriter Caroline Rose has been touring in support of her March 2023 album release, The Art of Forgetting, a rock/pop addition to a body of work that includes folk, country and rockabilly. FOH engineer Jon Januhowski has been working with the artist since 2018, supporting the band’s first big move to IEM’s at that time. “The phrase, ‘punching above our weight-class,’ has been thrown around a lot leading up to and during this tour,” Januhowski says. “The same way we were setting up a [Midas] 32 and IEMs in the occasional dive bar years ago, we want to bring an experience to fans that’s not what you would normally see at a show this size.”
More details from Steve Jennings:
Caroline Rose is a singer-songwriter, musician and producer whose career started in 2012, where her first album “American Religious” was a blend of folk, country and rockabilly. Her most recent album released in March 2023 “The Art of Forgetting” is more of a pop-rock style. We caught her exciting and innovative performance where the first set of her show, her band performed behind a scrim where colored light was used to bring edgy looks to the show. For the second set the scrim is taken down and the band is out front with Rose. We spoke with her tour FOH Engineer Jon Januhowski about mixing the show using a Midas Pro2C console.
“We saw our routing and the rooms and knew we needed to scale up to appropriately do the show we wanted, but still had a couple smaller market shows. The Pro2C is a board I’m 100% confident on and the smaller footprint provided the flexibility necessary to go between rooms like Webster Hall and club shows. Though using some outboard gear on stage, having to keep everything in the board on my end I knew a Midas pro would get us the exact and distinct sound we wanted out of their pre’s and processing.”
When Januhowski first started with Rose, it was their first time bringing a tech at all instead of using house engineers. “We made a big jump of moving the whole band to IEMs and touring with a Midas M32r. For the first few tours I would run ears from FOH, eventually switching to an m32C for ears sharing gain, and finally to our current set up with an analog split. The gradual shift allowed for the band to be very communicative with their needs, and fairly self-sufficient. In our current lineup, everyone on stage has professional audio knowledge and can perfectly describe problems they hear or provide informed feedback to what needs to change. We keep one ipad tucked away on stage for emergency changes, and the rest are worked out in rehearsals and soundchecks, for me to take care of from a laptop with m32Mix at FOH.”
Januhowski says he’s had the blessing of working with Rose since 2018, and the goal has always been to provide the best show they can. “The phrase “punching above our weight-class” has been thrown around a lot leading up to and during this tour. The same way we were setting up an m32 and IEMs in the occasional dive bar years ago, we want to bring an experience to fans that’s not what you would normally see at a show this size.”
Rose thought up and directed the shows design, much the same way they write the albums as a solo act with some outside contributors. “Then we all get together to make it happen. She’d say- “can we take that song off tracks? I want to walk through the crowd during this song and crowd surf back onto the stage”. Or “we’re having a harp player join us tonight, how should we mic them?” There’s no suggestion off limits for this team when it comes to elevating the show and it’s an honor to be an integral part of making it happen.”
Januhowski notes there was a lot of time spent in microphone choice, lots of analog gear on stage, and making sure the right choices are happening on his end. “On the board we’re pretty simple with just some dynamic compression on a vocal group, and tape saturation on the drum shells group. Everyone on stage is singing into Roland VT4 units controlled at their own station for certain pitch shift or heavy auto tune effects. The most significant change is running at API Lunchbox onstage for Caroline’s acoustic and nylon string guitars (517 into 542), as a Bass DI (in and out of a 517), and an electric guitar direct line (517 into 1176 Blue Stripe) to emulate the sounds on the new record.”
“As is the nature with so many acts today, it’s a rotating cast with the sole artist as the centerpiece. When we were starting this album cycle Caroline and I realized I’ve been around the longest now. This was my first touring gig and has been responsible for turning this into a full time career. With this show and for all of the prior tours there’s always been a vision of how to present this to the audience and in order to do that there’s always needed to be trust that we both understand what the idea is. Touring this album has been the most challenging of presenting it accurately without sacrifice and without cutting corners, then to hit the encore set of very different back catalogue material. Artists need people out front that understand their vision, and to go with them when they want to challenge themselves and their audience.”
More photos from Steve Jennings:
