One of the most dynamic theatre experiences in New York is Drumstruck. If you liked Stomp, you'll certainly enjoy this show, which features a South African troupe that plays drums, sings and educates the audience about their musical legacy and heritage. But there's a twist: Every audience member gets a hand drum to play along during many sequences. It's fun for attendees, but undoubtedly a challenge for live engineer Kevin Brubaker, not to mention sound designer Tom Morse, who helped Brubaker land his first gigs in New York. From a behind-the-scenes standpoint, an interesting twist recently emerged in the show. Lifelong drummer and longtime soundman Brubaker actually stepped out from behind the mixing console after eight months to temporarily join the troupe onstage for two months after one cast member departed. It's a very rare circumstance in which a technician became a performer. Then again, Brubaker has played in bands and mixed them, and he brought that experience with him three years ago to New York, where he has worked on the off-Broadway shows Lone Star Love, On Second Avenue, The Regard Evening and Wilder. He also previously appeared as a percussionist in the Broadway show Blast!
As a percussionist and soundman, Brubaker is having a lot of fun with Drumstruck, and he brings an interesting perspective to the show.
FOH: So it just worked out that, when the cast needed a sub, you happened to be a drummer?
Kevin Brubaker: Even though Tom designed the show, it was just a match made in heaven because I was a drummer, and I've actually been to Africa and studied South African drumming. When I got the call for the show, he said I was perfect for this. Then, it just so happened that I could fill in the role for this guy who was leaving. I threw my name in the hat, and it made a lot of sense because I knew the show. I could have walked onstage that night and actually gotten through the show because I had heard it so many times. It saved them money in rehearsing somebody who didn't know the show at all, and I was more qualified talent-wise to fill the role. And there was a pay raise, which was actually the biggest motivation.
How has being onstage made you look at the show differently?
We have very minimal monitoring onstage, just because we don't want to increase the volume level at all. Even by monitoring any sort of fullback, we're increasing the dB level in that place, and because it is such a box and the set's pretty minimal; there's not going to be that reflectivity that would break everything up, not to mention that the drums are so loud. It's just the understanding that you've got to balance it onstage, and if the stage balance acoustically is pretty good, then your Front of House mix is going to be really easy and so much better, especially in a smaller theatre like this that seats around 500. You are getting so much acoustic sound that the stage balance needs to be on point and a priority, because for the people in the back half of the house, you really don't have that much control to get the mix right if the stage balance is off. That's something that as a performer is important, and it helps the sound engineer as well.
When you go back to doing sound, will you bring a new perspective with you?
I don't know because I've come the other way. I was a performer first, then a Front of House operator second, so I think if anything, being a performer has helped me be more of an operator rather than the other way around. I'm in demand as an operator. People really like my mixes because I'm a musician and know how to stack a major chord. I understand that you don't have to drive a major third so hard. All you have to do is touch it in there, and you've got a chord. I know what hocketing is between different rhythmic voices. Your tech-head guy could tell you the spread pattern of every single Meyer speaker since 1972, but I don't care about that. How is it working musically? I don't do straight plays, so it's all musical stuff.
What board are you running?
We're using a PM5D. It's got 48 inputs. Actually, you can get up to 58 if you use the stereo busses and some of the returns and stereo ins, but it's built as a 48-in, 24-out. There's onboard processing. I think there are more than 50 preset effects, but we use very, very few effects. We just use a splash of 'verb that you probably didn't even hear. That's the only thing that we do. We use everything onboard–some speaker processing, delays, compression and reverb.
How many mics do you have total?
There are 16 wireless. There are 11 bodies on the show, with a wireless on everybody, and then we also have wireless on three djembes and on the two rolling racks that come out for that drum duel. We're using DPA 4061s.
Are there any ambient mics?
Absolutely. As far as fixed positions, we're using a smattering of AKG. We're using five C419s for the back line drums, the ones that are on the high riser in the rear, the two bass drums and the double stack. Then we're using an MKH40 on that taiko drum on the right side. We're using five Crown foot mics across the front of the stage for when they do all the slapping stuff and the footwork.
Where do you place these?
The MKH is in the tree behind that taiko drum. All the other ones are small but clipped. We have them colored to the color of the drum. We have a couple of Neumann shotguns positioned mid-house, pointing at the stage.
Everyone in the audience is given a drum, which could be a nightmare for a soundman in terms of bleed-through and feedback. How were these issues addressed?
First and foremost, Tom's design of the show is to keep it natural. The whole look of the show is natural. There's nothing synthetic onstage. The whole concept of the show is to extract it from the South African village and put it out onstage, all the way to the sound content. We didn't want it to sound reinforced. We didn't want it to sound like a rock show. We didn't even want you to know that it was reinforced whatsoever. It is lightly reinforced. Everything in the system at all times at some point is tucked under.
We're not driving the inputs that hard, with the exception of the low end. We've got only four UPAs; a center cluster, an up and a down and then a left and a right UPA. We use those just for high-end detail work, mids and highs for contact sound on drum heads and voices. But for our low end, we have four Meyer 650s. So we've got serious firepower. The low end is where we reinforce, sometimes heavily, and those bass drums are laying down the beats for all of the audience participation. There's that beat going, and that's what's really holding everything together. Everybody just feels it. We're pushing a lot of air, so people are actually feeling the pulse, so they don't have to take just a visual cue off of the facilitators onstage. The fundamental principle of the show is to make sure that everything onstage is louder than the audience, just slightly. The basic factor is that everything onstage is 2dB louder than the audience. Sometimes you get some pretty loud audiences. On Friday and Saturday nights, you get people who have had a few drinks in them and can get pretty raucous.
Is it interesting to be onstage and know what it should sound like?
Yeah. On the timbales, I know from mixing the guy that played those before that there are certain tendencies in that room of how those instruments sound and that I can't play certain things too loud. I can't go full out on that top timbale because without even a mic, I can totally obliterate anything else around me. The size of the room is just not that big, so I have to be careful in certain situations.
So you're keeping busy!
Yes, in addition to groups I play with around New York and studio session work. It's fun. I'm wearing two hats, both of which I love. They both complement each other, too.
