NASHVILLE — As the pandemic-related shutdown has devastated the live events industry and shuttered venues and festivals across the globe, many audio professionals are finding new ways to bring live music to a sequestered audience. It is this challenging new environment in which Hellooo Productions was conceived.
A weekly concert series featuring artists from a wide range of genres and locations, Hellooo TV features live in-concert performances from artists across a multitude of genres, recorded in a real concert setting created in professional rehearsal/performance spaces in Nashville, London, Cologne, Los Angeles, and other major cities.
For performances originating at Special Events Services’ (SES) facility in Nashville, Clair Global supplied DiGiCo’s Quantum7 console at FOH and an SD10 for monitors, with a KLANG:fabrik setup at monitors.
Erik Rogers (Godsmack, Avenged Sevenfold) has been working with producer and Paris Visone on Nashville’s Hellooo TV projects, starting off at Soundcheck in Nashville, then at SES, where they built their own soundstage for the concerts. (The screen captures above are from Hellooo TV’s “Nashville’s Loose Change” show, featuring 30 musicians from a variety of popular bands.)
“By creating Hellooo TV, our goal is to put people back to work, raise awareness, and raise funds for the hundreds of thousands of industry pros who have been impacted by the loss of so many shows and so many jobs,” said Visone. Notably, 25% of proceeds from every show is donated to MusiCares and the National Independent Venue Association.
“Our goal is to create a powerful, immersive concert experience that will not just entertain people, but also remind them of the value and the importance of live concerts in their lives,” added Rogers.
“Each performance is a live show, just time shifted for streaming,” Rogers continued. “There is no fixing in the mix, no punch-ins, no edits. The artists understand that they prepare for our shows as they would any actual live performance. The energy, the tension, it’s all there. And that’s why we needed to use the same equipment we use on tour, which is DiGiCo.”
At FOH, Rogers is mixing the live sets from the Quantum7 and he says it fits the workflow for Hellooo TV’s format perfectly, which is to say it fits any workflow. “The flexibility of the Quantum7 is endless; I can put anything, anywhere,” he said.
Hellooo TV monitor engineer Mike Babcock (Lamb of God and others) also credited the DiGiCo SD10. “Whether it’s wedges or IEMs or a mixture of both, the SD10 is a console that gives me the flexibility to create a layout and workflow that allows me to quickly fill the variety of needs for any size act,” he noted.
Rogers adds that the DiGiCo desks are also familiar to many of the artists performing on the show. “The SD10 could be turned over to any of their monitor mixers, and they’d be ready to go on it.”
Rogers has been recording the performances directly from the SD-Rack into Reaper multitrack software, from which the show is played back through the Quantum7 where the stereo mix is used for the streams. On the Quantum7, he groups the input channels—drums, bass, guitars and keyboards each have their own subgroups, as do vocals, which are further subgrouped into main, backing and effects groups. Each of these are then effected using the Q7’s Mustard processing, a fully integrated suite of additional processing that can be assigned to any strip with a range of modeled preamps, vintage dynamics units and EQ sections.
“Mustard is so complete and comprehensive that I’ve been able to replace almost everything I had been doing before with plugins with it,” he said. “The dynamic options, the models of compressors it offers, from FET to VCA, everything I need is right there and I can stay right on the channel strip.”
The subgroups are then routed through the KLANG:fabrik during the mix, as Rogers strives to recreate the ambience of an arena that will translate through the streaming process. “I’ll keep the drums fairly close to the center, spreading out the toms a bit, then spread the guitars and keys further around the 360-degree range,” he says. “But then the vocals really benefit from the immersive stuff the KLANG can do, using the head modeling they’ve built into the software. I’ll put the main vocals right around the temple and the eyes, the backing vocals around the earlobes, and the effects around the base of the neck. When you listen over headphones or earbuds, the effect is incredible, and it really does translate over the stream. It accurately emulates that immersive sound of an arena when you’re standing in front of the stage.”
Rogers and Visone began planning Hellooo TV from their respective homes in Sarasota, FL and Boston before converging in Nashville. The DiGiCo, KLANG and Waves gear is provided through the collective efforts of Clair Global, Special Event Services and Group One Ltd. Additional vendors, including Audio-Technica, Canon, Gallagher Staging, Empire Touring, Screaming Images and Woodshed Stage Art, have also contributed equipment and time to the show, which began recording in May and streaming in June.
