This past January, my good friend and legendary acoustic designer, Sam Berkow, contacted me about an interview he had just completed for a podcast website called Sonic Garage. After the interview was concluded, Sam had provided Troy, Sonic Garage’s interview host, with a list of people in the audio field whom Sam believed would be interesting interviewees. Sam let me know that my name was on that list and wanted to know if I would participate. He gave me the website address and contact information for Troy at Sonic Garage.
After listening to Sam’s excellent interview at sonicgaragepodcast.com, I was impressed with the format and the content. The podcast was informative, well directed and thoroughly entertaining. I was initially eager to participate, but I then listened to two recent interviews with live sound engineers. During my 40 years of mixing live audio for international headline bands, I have been the subject of a great many interviews. The live mixer podcasts to which I had listened contained many predictable questions — questions that I have answered repeatedly in the past. It was my hope to steer the interview away from these stock questions in order to inject a little spirit and enthusiasm into the stereotypical question and answer format.
I contacted both Troy and Sam to discuss details and set up an interview time. I let each of them know that I believed any interview should veer away from traditional or strictly biographical topics. I hoped to use a more anecdotal approach in order to get closer the actual mixing environment that I experience from my seat in the middle of the audience. I encouraged Troy to allow me to describe my work based on topics that went deeper than simply providing a record of the acts for whom I have worked and a laundry list of my preferred equipment. Troy was enthusiastic in his support for this looser format, and he sent me a preliminary list of less standardized questions that made me feel much more comfortable about the structure and confident about the direction the interview would take.
Question #9
One proposed question in particular had the mark of Sam Berkow’s sense of humor all over it:
Question 9: You were known as “Captain Analog.” Now you’re a digital guy. At what point did you transition to “the dark side” and why?
This is an interesting topic for a number of reasons. In the first place, Sam Berkow is the person who brought the SMAART acoustic analysis program to laptop computers all around the world and was therefore a strong, clear voice for “the dark side.” Additionally, “the dark side” is hardly a new phenomenon. Digital equipment began its steady infiltration into the world of live audio as early as the 1970s. Since the first Eventide and Lexicon digital effects devices were introduced, the live sound industry has completely embraced the new audio technology. Digital effects, digital control systems and digital mixing consoles have steadily evolved into essential tools for optimal job performance by live sound engineers.
But it seems that a strong division of opinion remains when it comes to one’s choice of mixing consoles. There are those who are staunchly analog and there are those who are decidedly digital when it comes to mixing platforms. I have always been more of a curious hybrid. My first exposure to digital mixing systems was the venerable and revolutionary Yamaha DMP7 (yamahaproaudio.com/ global/en/about/history). We used this device on Paul Simon’s Graceland tour for mixing Tony Cedras’ three keyboards down to a single stereo output. The MIDI-addressable DMP7 had programmable scene memories and motorized faders. Graceland’s master keyboard tech, the late Andy Forster, was one of the first to employ this unique piece of 16-bit digital gear on a major tour. He and I worked together closely to sculpt and blend Tony’s various keyboard sounds and effects.
As impressed as I was with the capabilities of the DMP7, it wasn’t until 2000 that I incorporated a digital console into my FOH setup. During the intervening years, I had used both the Yamaha ProMix 01 (1994) and the 02R (1995) for small one-off projects. However, I never felt comfortable or facile enough with the format to try mixing a bigger show on a digital desk. That point of view changed when Paul Simon put together his band for the You’re The One tour in the summer of 2000.
This band included two large percussion setups that flanked Steve Gadd’s drum kit. Steve Shehan, the stage right percussionist, required 16 inputs. Jamey Haddad, the stage left percussionist, required 18 inputs. I decided to dedicate a Yamaha 02R to each of them. In this way, I was able to maintain a reasonable handle on what was already an elaborate collection of outboard gear employed on the rest of the band’s instruments and singers. I used only the 02R’s onboard effects, gates and compressors to process the percussion inputs. I had scene memories programmed for every song that I recalled via a remote MIDI keypad that sat on the Yamaha PM4000 main console. In this way I was able to mute unused microphones or turn on specialty mics. The recall agility of the 02R allowed me to optimally manage the continual flow of leakage entering the 47 different drum and percussion input transducers.
Later in 2000, I had an opportunity to mix a large, multi-performer event on an Innovason digital console. Although I wasn’t favorably impressed with the overall operation of the desk and the quality of its audio output, I was extremely impressed with the facility with which it could accommodate the multiple band setups. Both storage and recall were flawless. There was enough positive reinforcement from this experience to keep my mind open to the possibility of a digital console someday becoming a viable alternative to a large analog console in my FOH rig.
In 2003, I replaced the 02Rs and began using the newer Yamaha DM2000 digital console as the expansion input system. I had also begun using the newly released Yamaha PM5000 as my main console. While the Yamaha proprietary operating system was essentially the same, the audio quality from the 96k DM2000 was a noticeable improvement over the older 02R. The audio through the PM5000 was truly remarkable, and I enjoyed every show I mixed using this FOH system. I remained on this combination at FOH, mixing tours for Simon & Garfunkel, Bette Midler and James Taylor through 2006.
That Huge FOH Outboard Cache
Throughout this period, and for many years before, I also carried a large cache of outboard gear that included tube compressors from TubeTech, Summit and Aphex; solid state compressors from dbx, Aphex and BSS; Drawmer noise gates; and digital reverb, delay and pitch change processors from Lexicon, Eventide, AMS and TC Electronic. The bulk of this gear was housed in a vertically hinged, dual 17-space folding rack. The overflow electronics were hidden in the low 3 x 10-space rack that supported the PM5000 console.
The watershed year for me in my choice of consoles was 2006. James Taylor had initiated his new performance project, One Man Band, in which only he and keyboardist Larry Goldings appeared on stage. The One Man Band shows were performed in theaters all over the U.S., Canada and Europe. Maximizing seating was all-important. Space at FOH was therefore at a premium. Production management made it clear that a large analog console accompanied by racks of outboard gear were not acceptable to their space allocation for FOH audio.
Because I was still busy with Donald Fagen’s solo tour early in 2006, I actually missed the first week of the One Man Band shows. Clair Global’s Howard Page very ably filled in for me at this time. Howard had chosen to use a Yamaha PM5D console as the FOH console complemented by no additional outboard equipment. The input count was definitely small enough to fit on the 48-input PM5D and the amount of space the console occupied fit into the production’s space specification. I remained on that Yamaha desk for the remainder of the spring tour leg.
Moving to the Plug-in World
When the tour resumed later in the year, I made a switch to the Digidesign (now Avid) Profile system. I was attracted to the operating system, the easy availability of TDM plug-ins, the intuitive control surface and the ease with which one could navigate on the display. With ample guidance and instruction from the design staff at Avid to get me started, I firmly believed that I would be able to build a show on the Profile format that would rival in quality any show I had mixed on an analog desk. It is with that blind yet total confidence in the magic of mixing that we engineers remain dedicated to pushing our art — hopefully forward.
From that day in the autumn of 2006, I committed myself to the world inside the box. Once the stage inputs were connected to the stage racks and converted to digital signals, our shows remain in the digital domain with no additional conversions until hitting the processors in the amp racks. In that way, latency is kept to a minimum and signals suffer no data loss during repeated and unnecessary conversions. In my way of thinking, this method of mixing completely in the digital world makes the most sense. Initially, my journey inside the box was a forced march — I adapted by rapidly and thoroughly re-educating myself in order to become the master in this new realm. Ten years later, I don’t miss either the huge analog desk or the vast racks of outboard gear at all.
In 2014, I migrated to the DiGiCo SD5 console as my choice for mixing the James Taylor show. The SD5 possesses the audio quality, the software features, the Waves functionality and the control surface operation that are best suited to the music being performed by Mr. Taylor and the band. In the 12 years I have been mixing James Taylor’s tour, we have been honored with four TEC Award nominations. The first was earned while mixing on the Yamaha PM5000 analog desk. The next two were from tours that were mixed on the Avid VENUE system. The final nomination was received for our work on last year’s tour that was mixed on the DiGiCo SD5. It seems that our standard of performance has been maintained regardless of the mixing platform employed to create it. Thank you to our colleagues for the most appreciated recognition.
Safe travels!
