DALY CITY, CA–Bruce Springsteen's longtime FOH engineer John Cooper is one of the newest converts to the Digidesign VENUE live sound environment. Springsteen, one of the biggest acts in contemporary music, is on a worldwide tour through 2007 promoting his latest recording, The Seeger Sessions. Some of the tour highlights to date have been The New Orleans Jazz Festival, and television appearances on "The Tonight Show" and "Late Night with Conan O'Brian." Cooper is utilizing VENUE to mix all of Springsteen's live shows, along with Pro Tools to record and later remix the songs for a subsequent live release and for use on the Internet. Cooper chose a 96-input/16-output VENUE system when searching for a higher quality FOH mixing platform for Springsteen. The system's plug-in architecture was a big selling point (among others, Cooper uses the Bomb Factory BF76 compressor, BF-3A compressor, and Fairchild 660 limiter). Cooper was equally impressed with the VENUE system's overall sound quality, reliability, small footprint and ease of use.
Cooper uses the console's snapshot automation as a starting point for each song, allowing him to have a unique mix balance for each piece of material. However, the "killer app" for Cooper has been the VENUE system's virtual soundcheck function, which is made possible by a direct connection to a Pro Tools|HD system running 72 tracks of recording and playback.
Thanks to virtual soundcheck, Cooper has yet to tune the PA system with any other audio material other than the recorded performances, and his mixes have already found their way onto the Web. "We're posting a song on AOL each night after the show that is straight off the console with audience mic's–no remixing," boasts Cooper. "We are also planning to remix some other live songs for future use. Bob Clearmountain is already mixing tracks from the tour! He has commented about the high sound quality of the tracks, as has management and Bruce Springsteen."
Cooper is quick to illustrate his point: "During rehearsal the band was working up a new song, which I captured with the Pro Tools rig. I put a quick mix together which I played for Jon Landau, Bruce's manager. He was floored by the performance as well as the mix quality. I then gave it to Bruce who was equally pleased. When Jon asked if we should get it off to Clearmountain to mix, I was told Bruce's reply was that it could hardly be improved on. It did end up being remixed by Bob, but my version is still on the website as delivered to Jon and Bruce.
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