On the road with the James Taylor tour, one learns early about the intensely personal relationship that James has established with so many of his fans. Over the decades he has been performing his songs, he has deeply connected with his audience through his writing, singing and the power of his personality. In my 40 years of touring, I have never witnessed an artist be more free with his time for interacting with the fans. During the intermission at each show, James sits on the front of the stage shaking hands, signing autographs and posing with audience members for selfies before the band pries him away to perform the second set. After the show he usually does a meet-and-greet backstage. Finally, as he leaves the venue and heads to his bus, James spends additional time with everyone who has been patiently waiting at the stage door. Never have I seen James Taylor refuse an autograph request or otherwise deny a reasonable request from a fan. His stamina, devotion and patience are truly remarkable.
Setting the Standard
In his unique way, James sets a very high bar for showing respect to the ticket buyers, and his positive influence permeates every level of our touring organization. In this respect, the audio department strives to make each show experience, from those staged in small theaters to those performed in vast arenas, as intimate and accessible as possible for those attending. We are continually pursuing the illusive goal of making the obvious presence of the P.A. “disappear” as much as possible. We strive to maintain the impression that the audience is listening to the sound of the band and singers coming straight off the stage, as if there were no intervening wall of black boxes.
Always aspiring to this ideal standard of live presentation, we attempt to retain as much realism as possible in the sound of each instrument being reproduced by the audio system. The process of accurately presenting each instrument begins with the many carefully chosen transducers and then works its way down the audio chain until the sound mix is ultimately realized via the speaker output. In reference to the show for 40,000 people we just completed at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, this short fan quote from James Taylor’s Official Facebook page perfectly summarizes our team goal and epitomizes the highest type of praise we can hope to earn:
“The sound quality was superb! Sounded like you were in my living room.”
The Chain
I have to admit that modern 96k digital audio is incredibly pristine. This may sound heretical, but it has become apparent that there actually is no digital vs. analog conflict. There is only the process by which one decides that Platform D, not Platform A, holds a distinct advantage in completing its day-to-day tasks while still providing extremely high quality audio and best fulfilling the overall needs of the production. We believe we have made the best choice for our tour by relying on a DiGiCo SD5 console system at front of house. Once the stage inputs are connected to the SD input racks and converted to 96k digital format, all audio then remains in that digital domain through every processing device until it hits the Lab.gruppen 20K amplifiers that power the Cohesion 12 columns or the HDX cards in the Pro Tools rig.
Visually obvious and more potentially intrusive than a console’s particular mixing platform choice, the actual speaker system contains the greatest potential for erecting a barrier between the art produced on the stage and the audience. Major tours all carry the most sophisticated sound systems, and each manufacturer’s products possess the pedigree and credentials to have earned their position of prominence in the live sound industry. There is a certain amount of parity that is shared by the biggest players. But my experience on tour this year with the Clair Cohesion-12 has been an eye-opener in so many ways.
As I shared in last month’s column, I was instantly impressed by the audio output when we first powered up the Clair CO-12 system at the beginning of this year’s James Taylor tour. I have continued to be impressed each day during our encounters with a variety of performance spaces and circumstances. I have been able to make a few more detailed observations and discoveries about the system after three months on the road.
Prediction vs. Performance
I have never been a fan of deploying speaker arrays according to a prediction program. Real-life problem areas, performance conditions or obstacles present much more challenging issues than can be solved by entering room dimensions. It always seemed that careful observation followed by well-considered decisions was a better path to follow. For the past 10 years, Clair systems engineer, Andy Sottile, and I have done pretty well using a “seat of the pants” flying approach in deploying our Clair i-3 line array system. But after using the prediction program that Clair provides in conjunction with the Cohesion-12 system, I have been forced to re-evaluate my personal bias.
Greg Oshiro, design engineer at Clair Global, has assembled an impressive library of building specifications for a vast number of performance spaces in North America. Most of the buildings we have played on this year’s tour in the U.S. and Canada were available in the software. The stored information is exhaustive and extremely accurate. It includes top views, various side section views and building feature descriptions. Greg’s efforts have given us the opportunity to get a head start on most of the halls and arenas in which we have performed. On a typical show day, Andy Sottile uses the time when I am tuning the system and during line check to work on a game plan for the next venue. The prediction program provides extensive data on horizontal and vertical frequency distribution plus dB-SPL response graphics. The program then recommends flying heights, angles between the 16 CO-12 cabinets in the curved vertical arrays and amp shading suggestions.
The following morning, Andy and I immediately make our own empirical observations upon entering that venue. We are looking for prominent physical features like large exposed flat surfaces, untreated reflective metal roofing or large immoveable scoreboards — while also noting available rigging points, possible height restrictions and changes to the promoter’s seating chart data. We then have a meeting over breakfast and adjust the program’s settings to best meet that day’s challenges. Andy and I usually have a working plan for the day prepared before the first truck is cracked open at 9 a.m.
Our experience so far has validated our newly forged alliance with the prediction program. I only remember one instance in which the results were even remotely questionable. But that was in a venue for which the Clair database had no design information. In general, using the Clair program augmented by our intuition has been fast, easy and reliable. At the same time, I don’t want to overemphasize the software’s contribution to the actual sound of the Cohesion-12s. That is something that must be heard to be appreciated.
This spring and summer on the road has thoroughly demonstrated to me, management and the audience that the Cohesion-12 system produces an entirely new level of live audio reproduction — in both fidelity and distribution. The Cohesion system is very aptly named because the audio output seems so connected and consistent. I never have the feeling that I am listening to individual boxes. In fact, it is extremely difficult to isolate and localize the sound output to one or even two boxes. From my position 100 feet from the stage, I have the feeling that I am mixing on a very large pair of monitor speakers.
The Disappearing P.A.
If I am going to ever succeed in making the audio system disappear, it needs to sound the same everywhere. CO-12 produces audio that is the closest I have experienced to that ideal. I am accustomed to hearing obvious response changes as I walk up and down the vertical coverage area of most curved linear arrays. In the Lake software, I break down the Clair Global i-3 columns we have used for the past 10 years into control groups of two boxes so that I can effect very fine individual adjustments over level and equalization. But with the CO-12s, it only took me a couple of load-ins to become convinced that I could safely cut my tuning time in half. The total consistency in the vertical and horizontal distribution allows me to perform only an overall left/right EQ process. Amplifier shading is the only attention that needs to be paid to any of the individual pairs of boxes.
This simple process is in direct contrast to the more detailed operations I have always needed to employ to even out the 12-high arrays of Clair i-3s that we use for side columns. However, these same side columns now require a far less radical equalization regimen now that they are working in conjunction with the Cohesion-12s. Blending the two columns together has become a much less time-consuming task as well. In all, I am now using about half the time this year to tune the P.A. as I did on previous tours. That gives everyone more time as the day inevitably closes in on our 4 p.m. sound check.
After mixing for the past three months on the CO-12s, I am really excited about carrying a complete Cohesion 12 system on tour next year. We just had a great taste of completeness at Wrigley Field where the two main and two side columns were each 16-high Cohesion 12s arrays. Nearer the grandstands were five delay towers from which were hung eight-high CO-12 columns. Twelve Cohesion 8s used as frontfills and 18 of Clair Global’s CP-218 subwoofers augmented 104 total Cohesion 12s. It was easily the most pleasing stadium audio this mixer has ever experienced. The summer night at Wrigley was a bit of audio magic.
Safe Travels!
Complete specs of Clair Global’s i-3, i-5 and Cohesion systems are available at www.clairglobal.com.
(For Part 1 of this column, go to http://www.fohonline.com/ci/21-on-the-digital-edge/14933.)
