When I walked into the arena in Ontario, Calif. to hook up with the team of Big Mick Hughes and Paul Owen (both of whom have been working with Metallica longer than some of the younger crew members have even been alive).
The first thing I did was let loose a stream of profanities. The new configuration of the sub-bass array that I had come out to see was not hung. More on that later.
This would prove to be probably the last time I would have the pleasure of sitting with Big Mick and Paul at the same time as—after more than two decades with the band—Paul had decided to “get off the road.” The process was more difficult than anyone had figured and he ended up out for almost two months more than he had planned. At the time of this interview in late November no replacement had been named, although a couple had given it a shot and told Paul that he was basically nuts and that he was doing a two-person job by himself. Evidently they were right, as just prior to presstime, the team of Bruce Cowan (Springsteen, Megadeth, etc) and Jonathon Winkler, who has been Paul’s assistant for several years took over monitor duties. We’ll give them some time to settle in before we bug ‘em.
One final aside. I walked in during sound check and Big Mick and Paul sounded like two very proper British aristocrats discussing an engineering project. (Paul: “Big Mick?” Big Mick: “Yes? Paul: “I would say that we are just a bit over on the low end with that guitar. Big Mick: “I concur.”). But when we went to the bus to sit and talk, it was a little, well, looser. By the time I took out all of the instances of a certain word for which we get in trouble with some readers when we print the word count on this story went down substantially. By the time you read this, we may have an audio file of the actual interview available online. We’ll keep you posted.
The TM Array
Paul: Didn’t you have a stream of questions you said you wanted to fire at us?
FOH: Well, there’s a few things I wanna do. First off, I want to talk to you a little bit about … ending your time on the road.
Paul: Ha ha. Right.
FOH: If that’s ever gonna happen. [laughing]
Big Mick: He’s tryin,’really hard.
FOH: I know you’re trying real hard to do that, but before we do that, we need, I need to talk to you guys about the whole TM array. I mean, I’ve been out twice, I haven’t been able to hear it, which sucks.
Big Mick: And again you won’t.
Paul: Because we have to have this sort of grid above it that actually pulls it up off of our mother grid. I mean, normally we trim the bottom of a, of a NT array and, at, y’know, like 42 feet. Between 39 and 42 feet. Then you’ve got the mother grid on top of that, and then you’ve the distance of the motors and the spans set, and then you’ve got the chain to the roof. I mean, we need to have at least 65 to 75 feet clearance to the low steel before we even have a fighting chance. And you walk into one of these buildings and right underneath the scoreboard you’re sittin’ at 50 feet, and what are we gonna do?
FOH: If it works the way you guys are telling me it works it’s a game changer.
Paul: Well, exactly.
Big Mick: Oh, absolutely.
Paul: And that’s why Mick and myself have, without flying our own flag, have challenged this concept of in the round for over 18 years, now.
Big Mick: And we’ve tried everything. We’ve had everything.
Paul: And, I mean, I’ve literally tried everything to make it right, y’know, and it’s never really been right. So, this was the first time we actually got it right, but the problem you’ve got is the venues are dictating how we do it. That’s the only thing. But y’know …you can get away with 60 percent of the gigs and having them spectacular …
Big Mick: And bearing in mind that this array was kind of, at the start, was really frowned upon because of all the problems that it did bring with the weight, and the positioning, and the buildings, and the…
FOH: Well, I remember we talked about it at the very beginning, you didn’t think you were gonna use it over here.
Big Mick: Well, I didn’t think we could. We did it in London and, uh, Berlin …and we didn’t know if it was gonna roar. We didn’t really have a plan B [laughter] but …
Paul: I hope this works. ‘Cause if it don’t work, we ain’t got no other plan. [laughter] Know what I mean? Everything’s up there. It’s all sitting above the drummer’s head.
Big Mick: I didn’t think we were gonna do it in America. I’d already written it off. We just proved the physics of it all in London and Berlin. That was more what I wanted to do, we’d proved that this could work. We’d talked about it so much and it made perfect sense physics-wise, let’s do it, y’know?
FOH: Okay, well explain it to me.
Big Mick: Well, to start off with, the columns are turned inwards to put the drivers as close together as possible, so as you don’t get any interference.
Paul: Got a pen on you Bill? F**kin’ writer, you’ve got to have a pen. [laughter]
Paul starts drawing on a napkin
Paul: If you look at the stage like this, Bill, right, and we’re putting the subs in the outside corners, right? So when you look, you see this effect, okay? (Pointing out various null and lobe areas) So you’ll see all these nulls, right. When you bring all these into the center, here, like that, and they’re all in a square, it’s actually a perfect distribution. It just goes out … it just looks like a target.
Big Mick: It’s one color on the MAPP.
Paul: So when you see the column in the vertical then, it’s just the straight beam coming straight out
Big Mick: Straight parallel beam …
Paul: … so then what we do by delaying these sections, we steer that beam down to where we want it to be.
Big Mick: Because otherwise it crushes round the center of the arena in a parallel beam, but anybody on the floor, where I am, has no low end.
Paul: But changin’ how most people are doin’ it in the round, even how Celine Dion’s doin’ it right now, the low end is all stacked ‘round the stage here, so it’s like building a bonfire in the middle of the stage, everybody gets burnt close to it, and they’re all huddled together up the top, y’know what I mean? This gives you complete distribution.
Big Mick: Like a big aerial. But the problem is, like all aerials it’ll propagate perfectly straight … and the longer the array the more controlled that becomes. And 10 deep is a perfectly parallel beam, which is why we have to delay the lower portions to steer it down.
Paul: So the way we’re going to do stadiums, if we do this, to keep this concept to a certain degree we’re just gonna do one complete column down the side. No other subs.
Big Mick: One big column.
FOH: Whose idea was this?
Big Mick: It’s not an idea, it’s physics. But the TM array is Thormas Mundorf. Thomas Mundorf is the guy, works for Meyer on the European technical support. We talked about if for ages that we wanted better sub bass in the round. We toyed with putting them all under the stage, but of course that’s just stupid, because when you actually do the numbers on all these subs together, it’s like a 150-160 dB and you want me to …
Paul: And you can’s get a sub that’s gonna go and turn up 90 degrees and go up there, it’s not gonna happen. Not without killin’ everybody on the floor.
Big Mick: And not only that, people standing on the barricade would be crushed, Paul would never get the vocals above the rumble, and the stage would be moving. So, I went, where else can we go than? Oh, above the band. Thomas Mundorf went, well why don’t we go directly over the drummer and we’ll do this, and then Thomas came up with the four columns and did the MAPP projections on it, and we went, fine. And it’s pretty amazing when you think that we don’t have any subs anywhere else As soon as you start introducing different path lengths to subs, you’re closer to one than the other, you’re in a variable lobe then, it’s either canceling or it’s adding. Depending where the waveforms are, at whatever frequency, and where you are. If you’ve got one speaker, then I’ll say …
FOH: Yeah, but, there’s not a speaker that big.
Big Mick: But this is the next best thing to having one big f**k-off bass speaker. And it projects in a circle. It’s perfectly omnidirectional.
“Replacing” Paul
(Note: I wouldn’t try to do Paul’s job on a bet. While the entire band is on personal monitors, there is also a pile of wedges onstage so the band can “feel” as well as hear. With three singers and eight vocal mics with any person on any mic at any given time plus the need to “follow” three very active players around the stage with their mix in the wedges they happen to be nearest to… It’s pretty much impossible…—ed.)
FOH: Okay, so now this brings up a whole ‘nother thing. How do you do your job?
Paul: What? Do what?
Big Mick: I’ll sit back.
Paul: Well, after doing these guys for 23 years now, and building and building cues, and formatting a board to where eight vocals are everybody’s vocal, and each mix changes when they go to it in an instant. One of the first concepts I’ve always done is, can I do Metallica on a digital console? And everyone goes, well, it’d be so easy, well, it’s not, because by the time I’ve actually found the scene, it’s over with. And they can be standing in between two vocals and just go master, and I can just grab it, when it’s lying in front of me. When I’ve got to look for it, I’ve gotta do an extra thing. By the time I’ve looked for it, I’ve already been flipped off, y’know? So, I have to follow the three of them around on eight vocals plus drop all the cues in. And I’ve been building all these cues of 60, 70-odd songs that they throw in every night and change the set list to where it’s second sight for me now. I just don’t even look at the console. Me fingers on the fader, I just lift and pull it out. I know it’s coming. I play the songs with the band. And it’s only been apparent to me, trying to get somebody to come and do it over the last coupla months of how much I actually do.
FOH: Right, because you, you just do it every day.
Paul: I brought somebody else in to do, y’know, they were like a deer in the headlights. They were just totally, totally lost after watching it for years and years and years and thinking on the outside it looks very simple, ‘cause I make it look simple, but when you’re actually sitting there operating, they’re completely, utterly lost. So, one person’s already quit. I’m not sayin’ any names. Um, so what I’ve done now, I’ve realized that it’s far too much for one person to absorb in one sitting. You’ve got to do it in stages. So what i’ve done now, I’ve broken the vocals up to where my assistant sits there and just does the backing vocals.
FOH: Okay, so in other words, now you can bring somebody in and teach him to do what you do while Jonathon handles the backing vocals.
Paul: Yes. He’s not doing all of it. Cause they can’t think of doing it all. They can’t follow the bass ‘round, they can’t follow Lars, follow the vocal and do the backing vocals. They’re screwed. And the band notice it straight away: what’s goin’ on? It’s actually the the point as well to where there’s drop-ins, we actually give ‘em the time to start things where there’s ::ts ts ts:: This is where it starts, this is where I come in, because they’ve always got their backs to the drummer, as it is, in any configuration, they go off that, and they just want the high hat say for two beats ::ts ts:: but if you’re late coming in on that and you open up high hat late and he gives the first beat, it’s gonna start on the second one that ain’t comin,’it’s already gone.
Big Mick: So you could actually create a problem—timing problems for the band. You could never do it on digital.
Paul: Hey, there’s probably some wiz kid out there who thinks I’m just some 50 year old fool who shouldn’t be on the road mixing monitors on an analog console. But he’s quite willing to step up and do it. Maybe crash and burn, but he could probably work out a way of doin’ it eventually. Not saying it can’t be done.
Big Mick: The only way, the only way you could do it,right, would be an automatic matrixer where you would have something that realized what person was standing on what position on the stage and followed them around automatically with their own mix. Which means they’d have to wear a like a GPS thing or something. And then you’d have to output the console in person, and then it’d have to be matrixed, that mix could have to go wherever they’re standing.
FOH: That ain’t gonna happen.
Big Mick: You could do it. But what I’m saying is, Paul does all that.
Paul: And you’ve got drop-in of guitars for solos and different things that happen sporadically. You couldn’t do that with any sensors, that’s something you’ve gotta do. You have to know the catalog of songs.
Big Mick: Well that’s the other thing.
Kids These Days…
FOH: And at the risk of sounding like an old fart…
Big Mick: Kids. [laughter]
FOH: Well, you’ve got these kids coming out of school who think they know everything.
Big Mick: Oh, they, they come here, they go it’s a four piece heavy-metal band.
FOH: And how hard can it be?
Big Mick: Yeah.
Paul: You gotta put the gear in the truck first before you even get a chance to plug it in. Oh, I dunno how you load a truck. And we watched someone put the cam locks and put live in first! What? You don’t how to plug a cam lock? Well no, I’ve never done it before. I’ve had kids come to me goin,’well you know, I know all about the digital console more than the older guys, so you should pay me more. I said, fair enough, eh? Alright, you’ve got a show tomorrow, you’re going to be running it. It’s a local gig, and he comes back a couple of times, I’m like what’d you come for, uhhhh, I forgot the antennas and the panels, uhhh, forgot the cam lock—uh, the tails for the cam. I call him in and I’m like, hey, you can’t even do the fundamentals of putting the gig together!
Big Mick: But you want more money.
Paul: And you want more money because you can work a digital console? You’ve got to get power to it! [laughter] So, y’know, there’s a certain concept they’ve gotta start teaching ‘em in this industry which is how we learned from loading trucks and being a grunt and doing whatever we did, the technical part of it came afterwards. Y’know? It was something you learned along the way. ‘cause you could drive the trucks, stack it up, and stay up all night and stack the PA, and then hopefully get it working the next day, you were a good worker. It’s the other way around now.
Ford vs. Ferrari
Big Mick: For many years we worked with certain constants, rule of thumb stuff, y’know what I mean. You just sort of got the vibe. Now there’s so many things you can change, it’s scary what you can do. It’s scary shit.
Paul: It’s not just messin’ about with the treble and bass any more. Now it’s like we have surround sound where it’s the center vocal comes out of the middle and the sub comes out of the sub. Okay, rear sound, what do we have there? And the kids know it now, y’know. So it’s gonna be very hard to come into a gig and settle with a 20-old throw-out that sounds like ass.
Big Mick: Sounds like ass. [laughter] Stop yourself. You’ll be in the doghouse with me and him in a minute. We’re already in the doghouse.
Paul: But you know what I’m sayin’. If you’ve got a choice, you can either drive a Ferrari or you can drive a Ford, they sell a lot of Fords, but I tell you what, the guy who’s driven a Ferrari ain’t gonna go back …
Big Mick: But there’s a lot more controls in the Ferrari that you better get used to and know how to use.
FOH: But you get behind the wheel do you know what the hell you’re doin? I mean, I’ve, I’ve said for years that a line array is a weapon in the wrong hands.
Big Mick: Oh, absolutely. What’s incredible about all these new line arrays, is when you’re actually cueing something on them, in the old days you know, if you had a graphic on the system, you might go, ugh there’s a bit of too much 125, the classic frequency and you go, I’ll take like six dB off, and that’d be just enough to sort you out, y’know what I mean. But it’s like, you do six dB out of these new systems, and it’s gone. You better only be moving a coupla dB. You gotta be really fine. You can’t be hamfisted like we used to be with the old shit, because this stuff will respond.
FOH: So how are you liking the XL8 now?
Big Mick: It’s great. It’s took a bit of getting it—to grips with it. Because you can actually crawl up your own a**hole because it’s, it’s the same as the PA, it’s stuff everywhere if you want it. I mean, I went into this trying to use it like an XL4, and, it was a shame to restrict it to that. Things like, y’know, I have four mics make up James’s rhythm set. I have four mike make up Kirk’s set. With the XL4 you had to EQ each mic, put ‘em all together, listen to ‘em all, and go, they’ve all summed together to do this, then you’ve gotta go in and weed out that frequency through the four microphones. But of course with the XL8 you’ve got a thirty-one band graphic on all the sub groups. But that’s what I did before. I was doing it all on graphics, and I ended up taking too much out. So it’s like now okay I had to rethink it, but at least you can rethink it and it’s all just there. Just go to the patch page, and go I’ll have a graphic on there, and I’ll have a parametric as well, and it’s just done.
FOH: And it’s just there.
Big Mick: It’s just done. That’s so nice.
