Dave Skaff won the Parnelli Award for Monitor Mixer of the Year in 2005 for his work on the current U2 tour, which is keeping his hands full. In addition to it being a very high profile gig with a band that expects a lot, monitor world is under the stage, so he has to rely on video feeds and a complex talkback system to communicate with his clients. All that and he is using a new console… FOH: Let's get the obvious out of the way first. You are using the Digidesign Venue…
Dave Skaff: I love it. It's my favorite so far. From what they tell me–I haven't actually taken it apart and looked at it–the thing was built from the ground up. The mic pre's are real warm-sounding–closest to what I've heard on analog desks that I like.
Prior to the Venue?
I worked on the D5, and I was able to get around on those pretty easily. It's laid out very well. There's a lot of power in the package of a D5. But when I got onto the Venues–when I was with Alicia Keys earlier this year–I spoke to the guys from Digi, and I said, "Hey, can I try one?" They said, "Sure," and brought one down. I did the last Alicia show on it. In a day where we start everything from scratch and we mix the show that night, it sounded good. With all the associated problems in a day–like, the local company could not figure out how to get the patch straight at all. So, line checks were pushed back and all that. But even so, it was still easy to get around on the desk and do a show.
How much of the Venue thing is being driven by the Pro- Tools integration?
There seem to be two schools of thought. One is the Pro Tools people, who think it's a control surface. The other ones are older sound guys who think it's Pro Tools. It's a console. The part that most Pro Tools users would be familiar with is the plug-ins availability, which is a whole new world. It's a really cool new world as well.
How are plug-ins going to work for touring? Are there going to be timed versions? A time-out at the end of the tour?
I think that's how it's going to end up. And for the vendors, it's going to be something interesting, because it's all happening a bit fast, actually. I don't think that there's any solid consensus on how the vendors want to handle that yet.
I still see a lot of outboard gear…
That's our Sennheiser personal monitor transfer rack. This double rack is for Bono and Edge, so there is the standard or normal amount of effects in there. The little Yamaha mixer just handles the talk-backs, because the whole talk-back system is set up to where the back-line guys from the other side of the stage–the ones that we can't see over here–just open a mic, and it comes straight to my PMs. And I can pick up a mic and talk straight back to them.
Without the band hearing it? Without having to hit a switch or anything else?
Correct. It saves our life because the band was pretty solid on things happening immediately in their lifetime. They can't see us, so they've gotta have the trust that what they say is gonna happen right away. Sammy the drum tech sits right there. Larry looks over at him and says something. Half the time, I can see it on my screen, but he's turned his head. I know something's going on, but Sammy will just pick up a mic and talk right to me. I'll pick up my talk-back mic and go, "Got it! Acknowledged." So in the post-mortems later on, if there was something to discuss about some request during the show, it was. "Did you get it?" "Yes, I got the messages," and all that stuff. That's something we developed a few years ago.
Have you been working this way with them for a while?
I've actually been doing monitors with this band for 20 years. I started doing five or six shows on the Unforgettable Fire tour in 1985. I filled in for a couple of shows mixing just the drum monitors. Then, towards the end of the tour, mixing everybody else. I guess the size of my hair and my nose impressed them, because the call was, "We want the guy with the big nose and the curly hair to come back and do the tour." It took a lot of time, but my nose finally got me in. All right! A landmark they can sink their teeth into.
Three Front of House guys. I don't want to think about what the budget is.
There's three of us doing monitors. Robbie Adams mixes Bono and Nile Slevin mixes Edge, and I do the other guys…the rest of the team.
So, we talked about the Pro-Tools integration. My theory is that it's becoming part of just the business plan for releasing live recordings, for putting things out on the Internet, for…
It's definitely something that's in the realm of what this can do. When we first started the tour, because I didn't know how much time I'd have with the band, I had a 64-track recording. So when the band wasn't on stage, I could take the night before or the sound check, play it back, do my mixing and work on a few things and a few sounds and snapshots, or whatever. It was very, very helpful.
Now with the ability to record last night's show, is the day of the sound check over?
Oh no. By no means at all. Every building is different. Every day is different. I used to say, the warranty's off. As soon as it rolls out of the truck, the warranty's off. The show that was in the box when you put it in the truck and it was a good show–that show's gone. The next day the truck opens up, the guarantee's off. We've all gotta start from scratch.
Now is everybody on PMs these days?
Everyone, including the bass player Adam, is on PMs. They went to PMs in 1993. Bass players have always been harder because they didn't feel the low-end kind of thing. But Adam, in fair play to him, decided that he could do this the right way. He was going to give it a fair shot, and he did. You know, he's totally settled into them. He's up there on the ramps playing bass. For the rest of the guys in the band, it's like, "Well, look at him! He used to stay in the little pocket there on the stage."
So that's all Sennheiser wireless… What about the actual earpieces?
Three guys in the band are wearing Future Sonics, and Edge is wearing one of these pieces made by Etymotic. Edge's ears– what he likes to hear and the way he likes to hear it–tend to be a bit different than the other three guys. He's always trying new stuff, and at one point early on, he tried a few different things. It's not that he didn't like the Future Sonics. He did. He's done a couple of tours on them, but there was something about this tour and those ears that didn't work well for him.
How many guitar channels do you guys run?
Twelve. Something in that neighborhood.
Remember the days when you would just walk in and you just plugged an amp in?
I do. There's a difference in the style of music, as well. With Alicia's band, the guy had a Twin, and that was it. But then again, it wasn't the feature of the music. It was just an accent. This is different. This has been called the "Edge Orchestra." So that is quite a bit of guitar stuff.
Are there any challenges to doing this band that you don't have with other bands? Or is it basically a rock 'n' roll band with 12 guitar inputs?
In the music, there's a lot going on with these guys and it's trying to stay on top of it. Like any band, if you can break it down to its most basic parts, it's a service kind of thing with them. You want to make sure that when you know what they want and you can get there with them, that you stay as true to that as you can all the time. And then, some of them–like Bono–like to be challenged. You can do effects for him in his ears while he's listening to delays, reverbs and effects. He loves that stuff. It makes it more interesting for him to be out there doing it that way.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Hopefully healthy, still married and somewhere where I'm still making a good living and enjoying what I'm doing. It's a good industry and there is a passion about what we do. You love it. You hate it. It's all there. I try to get off the road once every five or six years. But there's still nothing like it when you mix a show, to put this whole thing of work together, it's a very vague thing. There's a feeling of accomplishment, like I've just taken all of these impossible factors and pulled it together and made something– as fleeting as it is–work.
From the Beginning–Joe O'Herlihy Front of House
You've been with the band how long?
Twenty-seven years this September. I'm in the entire spectrum, really, from the Bijou and the Bayou club in Philadelphia mixing inside the telephone box to a half-dozen people in the audience, to Giants Stadium and back– from clubs and bars, to clubs and theatres, to gymnasiums, to arenas, to stadiums and back again. It's been one hell of a ride so far.
Do you do anybody else, or do they keep you busy full-time?
I'm pretty much full-time, but I started my career with Rory Gallagher from '72 to '78, and I met these guys in September of '78. They were doing a college gig in Cork, Ireland, and I was supplying the sound company for the college gig. They were the fifth act on a five-act bill for the night, and I've been there ever since.
How do you like your D5?
The D5 is absolutely wonderful. To be perfectly honest, to genuflect in front of the technology pacemakers, I have lived my entire life, through my career, with the concept of "Wouldn't it be fantastic to be able to do this?" When things like the D5 come along, it's like an extraordinary experience because it's fantastic to see the sound reinforcement side of the industry catching up with the studio aspect of the industry. It's another life because 90% of what we do in the context of using a console like the D5 is preparation. So, you'll have your band rehearsals. You'll have your preproduction rehearsals where you get the chance to work on, in my case, 60 or 70 songs.
So, at a moment in time, Bono decides, "OK, tonight we're going to play 'I Will Follow.'" And the next song up in the set list for everybody might be something else. For me, it's a touch of a button now, whereas before with my three XL4s, two or three guys would be turning this on and that off…
Don't very often find a guy who's been around as long as you have who's really embracing the digital thing like this.
You have to be futuristic in your thinking. Working for a band like this pushes the envelope every time in all aspects of technology, from the drawing board of creating a new song, to a blank canvas, to the studio element. Then, it transitions from the studio to the stage, and any technology we can use to make that transition as good and as perfect as it needs to be when we're trying to replicate what we're doing on the record or something like that, and introducing the adrenaline-based aspect that associates itself with the performance…all of that–anything to do technology-wise that will enhance that–we embrace wholeheartedly.
I'm seeing studio guys out on the road a lot.
There'll be a lot more of it, but you will find out simply because all of the guys like myself are lagging back and not embracing the concept. Look at this as another instrument, as in all the instruments that are on stage. You develop that train of thought, and that's another way of looking at it.
So, what's the best thing about mixing U2?
The best thing about mixing U2 is that every show is different. The set list might remain the same, but there's an extraordinary energy that develops from the stage to the audience in that whole communication and connection thing, and for me, you learn something new in every show. I wake up every day and I love my job.
What's the hardest thing about mixing U2?
I'm a perfectionist at the end of the day. When planes fly over the building, or when the environmental condition in the building doesn't adhere to the theatrical sonic value of the night, that's the most frustrating thing for me–making it sit right. There's a beauty in looking upstage from my perspective, and at the end of the night when everybody comes around and walks out and they pass you by, you see an expression of joy, enjoyment, delight on peoples' faces…that they've been to a show that's been the best thing ever. Just to get that feeling from it, for me, is the reason why I do what I do.
