I first saw a Blue Man Group show nearly three years ago at the Luxor in Las Vegas, and I was completely blown away. If you have never seen–or heard–the show, it is really pointless to try to explain it. There's no dialogue, but there are lots and lots of drums and weird instruments made of PVC pipe. (Yes, those are real and miked. You are not hearing samples, but real air moving through real tubes.) I met Ross Humphrey shortly after that at the last AES show in New York, and we talked about doing an FOH interview and have been playing phone and e-mail tag ever since then, trying to align our schedules and make it happen. The Blue Man's recent move from the Luxor to the much classier Venetian, a huge new install and a whole new theatre seemed to be the trigger that finally got the whole thing going.
I talked with Ross and with Matt Koenig, who started as the monitor guy on the Luxor show and has moved up to the point that Ross calls Matt his "right hand." After designing the show and getting it up and running, Ross is off to a new Blue Man show in London and Matt has taken over as the head audio guy for Blue Man Las Vegas.
What is different about the new system?
Ross Humphrey: The previous system at the Luxor was a conventional EAW horizontal array and a large delay system. In the Venetian, we are using a D&B line array system and just some small fills to reach the last rows of the balcony, and to brighten some places that low end builds up. On the console end of things, we used several different analog consoles, and we're now using PM1Ds. I'm using a bunch of XL42 pre amps for some key inputs. I know that Yamaha has improved the sound of the mic pre's in the newer 1Ds, but I like the way the 42s work with the PVC instruments and the D&B speakers.
What are your basic requirements for a BMG install?
Mostly lots of inputs, and flexibility. Things are going to change right up to opening. We also need speakers and amps that will deliver a great deal of low end with all the drums in the show. We are using 94 of the 95 inputs on the 1D and about 60 of those are drums.
When I got there last week, you were dealing with SMPTE issues. How much of the music in the show is canned?
Some of the bits are canned, and those are the ones that we are sending SMPTE to lighting. One piece that the band plays live has a click track, and some Foley-type sound effects, but when the band is playing, they are making all the sounds. So to answer your question, about 15% is canned. All the PVC instruments are played live and miked. People often think they're sampled.
Talk to me about the PVC instruments. Who designs them, and how do you mic them? Are they as cool as they look?
The original PVCs were designed by the three creators of the show: Phil Stanton, Chris Wink and Matt Goldman. They have gone through many iterations, and in the last few sets we seem to have settled into the best design we've had so far. Aron Sanchez builds the instruments, and he is the person that brought them to their current state. It's an art–they sound really cool. It's a very unique and primitive sound.
Why D&B? There must have been big pressure from other speaker makers for this very high-profile install…
D&B, because they sound so good. The B2 subs are unbelievably tight, and with the amount of 30 to 120Hz information a Blue Man show generates, that's really important. I also like the fact that you can get them really loud without them being painful.
Tell me about the custom drum mic mounts you showed me? Did you come up with these? How often do you have to invent a solution?
The fact that Blue Man invents a good number of their instruments, coupled with the fact that the instruments are totally unconventional, creates a lot of challenges for miking, or just finding placement for mics.
One thing we did do was create a shock mount for the Shure 98s that we use inside an instrument we call the "drumbone".
Those things I showed you were actually pop filters that we made to stop the thud caused by the air rushing out of the PVC instruments. We had to make them the way we did because there is air coming at the mic from about 180 degrees.
How sonically different is one show from another. Is there a change based on geography and the audience?
The shows somewhat differ from show to show, but they are basically supposed to sound the same. The differences come mainly from the designer's choices for gear, the age of the gear, when the show started in a location and the theatre. The Las Vegas and Berlin shows are really large and have more band members, particularly drummers. I didn't design all the shows. I've just been with Blue Man since '99, so I designed the show at the Luxor, The Complex Tour, Berlin, Toronto and now here at the Venetian.
Processing? EQ? Using just the internal PM1D stuff or are there some secret weapons?
Like I said before, we are using the Midas mic pre amps for about 24 inputs. For EQ, we're using Lake processors and doing some of the really precise adjustments in D&B's rope program. I also use a Lexicon reverb for the PVCs and the old blue face MXR fl anger/doubler on them as well. It adds a "vocality" to the tube instruments. I've found that I can't really get a satisfying flanger sound on modern digital gear.
I thought you had been with Blue Man longer. What were you doing before this gig? What about your previous experience made you the right guy for this gig?
I did a lot for rock touring and recording. I'd tour with bands for the run of their record, then I'd stay home for as long as the money I'd put away from touring would last, and make records with indie and punk bands. I also worked in a mobile recording truck for six or seven years.
I don't know exactly what made me the right person for the job, other than the fact that Blue Man were looking for more of a rock aesthetic in their shows. Also, my good friend Todd Perlmutter, who is the music director for BM, asked for me. I had done some consulting, and mixed some outside appearance for them as early as '97.
The theatre world has changed a lot, and in some productions, sound carries the show. But still, at the end of the day, sound gets little to no respect. I would really like to hear your thoughts on audio and theatre and the relationship between the two and where it is all going.
Actually, I don't know much about where audio is going, or where it's been in theater because I've done only rock prior to BM. I have found that audio seems to be at the bottom of the pecking order in theater, even when it's a critical part of the show from when the doors open until walkout.
BM fortunately seems to be slightly better than "theatre" in general, but I find I will still have to fight for speaker position versus a piece of scenery that may be a special effect for 30 seconds in the show.
For example, we had to hang our arrays so high that I needed to put some speakers down lower at the proscenium to draw the image down. Before we did that, the perception was that all the sound was coming from above you. The speakers at the sides of the proscenium, while bringing the audio image down lower, also takes it further left and right.
I'm trying to figure out a way to overcome physics, but up to this point, I've had limited success.
