Sound Companies
Eighth Day Sound/Clair Global
Venue
Various (Tour)
Crew
- FOH Engineer: Tom Wood
- Systems Engineer: James Ellison
- Monitor Engineer: Dalton VanVolkenburgh
- Monitor Tech: Jake Caples
- Tour Manager: Cath Roberts
- Production Manager: Greg Dean
- P.A. Techs: James Coghlan, Miranda Baca
Gear
FOH
- FOH Console: Avid S6L-32D
- Processing: Waves (Extreme Server), Sonnox, Avid
- Outboard: (2) SSL Fusion, (1) Lake LM 44, Neumann KH310 reference monitors
- P.A. System: Cohesion CO12. Mains (per side): (16) CO12, Side Hangs (per side): (14) CO12, Subs: (21) CP218 (six flown per side; nine in a ground center cluster), Front Fills: (12) CO8
MON
- Console: DiGiCo Quantum 338
- Processing: Mustard EQ/tube emulation, DiGiCo plate, hall reverbs, DiGiCo delays; Neve 5045 + UAD Live Rack
- Mics: Sennheiser SKM 6000 BK handhelds w/Sennheiser 935 capsules on primary vocals, Shure beta 58’s on additional vocals
- IEM’s: JH Audio Roxannes, JH Audio JH16 V1’s
- Transmitters: 20ch Sennheiser 2050
Tour Details
Duran Duran’s Future Past 2023 North American Tour, with special guests Nile Rodgers & Chic and Bastille, kicked off with a May 27 performance at the Bottlerock Festival in Napa Valley, CA, followed by a variety of indoor and outdoor venues through North America. After an initial run in May and June, followed by a break in July and early August, the tour resumed and then wrapped up Sept. 19 at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
More details from Steve Jennings:
We spoke with Duran Duran’s FOH engineer Tom Wood who has been out mixing the band this year. Wood had been working with their tour director previously on Journey’s tour and was approached for Duran’s tour.
“The band were looking for someone with a musical background. I’ve been a musician since I was a child and approach sound from a music first, tech second perspective. It’s an honor at 30 years old to be asked to communicate the music of a generation that I wasn’t even on the planet for! Seriously though, the approach is simple, the fans know the music inside and out. Sure, I love to be able to put my spin on things, but unlike a client like Shawn Mendes, the priority with Duran is to replicate one of the most iconic musical sounds of the 80’s.
“To delve a little deeper here, each song is wildly different in things like drum sound. My snapshots have completely distinctive drum processing happening for Roger Taylor, to achieve the same sound as the albums. I use reverb not just to create space with the drums, but to shape them tonally. The bass lines are integral with Duran. John Taylor is a monster of a bassist and has created such a treat for the fans over the years. His lines aren’t just root note centric, they’re a complete song in themselves.”
Wood says clarity here is everything. He hates when the bass gets lost in arenas. “I’m always working towards communicating it effectively. Nick Rhodes is simply always in the pocket. He makes it easy and gives me the exact sounds from the albums from his rig. Guitar is delivered at the hands of Dom Brown from a Kemper. It is shaped with some minimal eq per song. Simon Le Bon’s vocal is a dream to mix. Out of any vocalist I’ve ever worked with, Simon knows how to look after his voice over the course of a tour. He is a powerhouse which means you can get away with so much live! He’s hitting an 1176 followed by a dynamic EQ (F6) then a R comp. As per the albums, I’m using effects to flange and distort the vocal. The entire music bus of the mix hits an SSL Fusion, as does Simon’s vocal, before summing back together at the master bus of the console.”
Duran Duran’s tour is supported by three great sound companies overlapping – Brit Row, Clair and Eighth Day Sound. Wood is mixing on an Avid S6L, noting he thinks it’s the best GUI of any console on the market still. “I like the Avid way of working with snapshots, virtual soundcheck, the delay comp. There is a lot that appeals to me within the S6L platform. So much so, that I’ve owned mine for about five years now. I know I can always get where I want to with the workflow in a way that is fast and without compromise.
“This band has had a mighty career,” Wood continues. “It’s a real sound engineers dream. Sometimes a band comes along and they can write songs, really perform, they have music that is timeless. With Duran, it’s not just the songs themselves that will live on, but the soundscape that accompanies them. Talk about the sound of a decade. It’s an honor to get to mix this band.”
