This past weekend, I had the pleasure of mixing a performance by Seal for a large corporate event held at the EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City. This event was my first time working for this particular artist, and I must admit it was a completely enjoyable experience. Although I was familiar with his hits, I had no previous experience of any kind with Seal’s live shows. When taking on a fresh project, I believe two things to be of paramount importance: preparation and networking.
I try never to go “cold” into an important show such if I want to perform well for the artist and the audience. Had I not been provided adequate preparation time, information and resources to do the best job possible, I would have turned down this one-off opportunity. In order to ensure a positive outcome, I needed to address several issues as soon as I accepted the work. Seal’s performance was on the closing night of a weeklong event so we could work only in the limited time budgeted for our production. We needed to use the time before we traveled wisely so that we could work at maximum efficiency in Salt Lake City and produce optimal results.
Getting Information
On the production side, I first needed to know what console and audio system we would be using. On the artistic side, I wanted to learn about the personnel in the band, study the required instrumentation as indicated by the input list and become familiar with the proposed song list. Online music downloads of Seal’s material were available, of course, but one can only tell so much from studio versions of songs that often substantially evolve in the following years of live presentations.
Seal’s production manager/monitor engineer, Chris Lantz, is an old friend with whom I have worked quite often over the years. He quickly provided me with a show file for the DiGiCo SD8 console that was in the gear spec. This was the console platform Seal’s last FOH engineer(s) had been using and it made sense to maintain that continuity for this upcoming show. However, I have only mixed one show on the SD platform, so my own level of proficiency was very limited. On the other hand, Clair Global was the sound contractor for the event with an i-5/i-5B P.A., which I have extensive first-hand knowledge.
The input list contained Sennheiser microphones provided by Seal’s production along with Radial and Whirlwind direct boxes. All of them are devices I have used on many occasions, so my confidence level was high. A more detailed look at the input list revealed that the band consisted of four musicians supporting Seal’s vocals: drums, guitar, one keyboard player who doubles on electric bass and keyboard bass, and one sax player who doubles on keyboards, electric bass, and keyboard bass. The guitar player and both keyboard players also sing background vocals.
The musicians’ live performances are complemented by seven pre-recorded tracks that provide the fullness and complexity in the arrangements that the four musicians playing on stage could not reproduce by themselves. This is a common format that has been adopted by many artists to make large scale one-off shows more cost effective and time-efficient, while still providing the audience with a complete experience of the artist’s material. It’s very similar to the approach taken by Lionel Richie’s band for the festival and corporate shows I mixed earlier this year.
Chris Lantz next put me in touch with Mark Summerlin, Seal’s guitarist and musical director. Chris also emailed me a link to an online video performance from Seal’s last tour so that I could have a visual as well as an audio reference for the music. Mark was friendly, helpful and informative. To further support my research into the songs, he sent me an audio recording from a recent show that allowed me to study the presentation using this particular band format. Mark also sent me a preliminary set list for the shorter performance we would be performing in Salt Lake City. Finally, Chris and Mark provided tempos for each song so that I could accurately and quickly determine song-specific delay times for the effects I’d be using on Seal’s vocal. Mark later provided an outline containing an overview of each song and the elements that needed emphasis or special attention.
Advance Prep Goes a Long Way
Chris and I next contacted Scott Appleton at Clair Global to determine a day at the Clair Soundworx facility (in Cerritos, CA) when a DiGiCo SD8 and an AVID Profile would be available to us for re-programming and line checking. The live band had been through several permutations over the previous months and the many additions and subtractions had resulted in a somewhat chaotic console layout. Chris wanted me to organize the console surface in a more logical and efficient manner, so we could line check more quickly and utilize the limited sound check time we’d have in a more effective manner. I live 75 miles away from the Soundworx shop, but I was more than happy to invest my time in the commute to ensure a successful venture.
Earlier this year, I had mixed a show on a DiGiCo SD10 and I was lucky enough to have Taidus Vallandi from DiGiCo assist me in setting up and programming the desk from scratch. In this instance, however, I would be modifying an existing show file created by another engineer. I determined that it would be most beneficial for me to learn how to make these modifications myself. From the DiGiCo website, I downloaded the SD8 brochure to give me an overview of the console’s physical characteristics and audio processing capabilities.
After digesting the brochure, I downloaded the SD8 user’s manual and including any appendices and updates that followed the publishing of the manual. The focus of my study was the initial task that needed to be accomplished in the Clair warehouse. I read how to assign and label inputs, how to organize inputs into the available banks of 12 faders and how to move individual inputs within those banks. Additionally, I learned how to assign and copy banks of inputs to any of the three groups of 12 faders on the control surface.
Hands-on the SD8
On the appointed day that Scott Appleton had arranged, and armed with a little more useful knowledge about the SD8, I met Chris at Clair where we dove into the console layout project. It’s always more difficult to adapt someone else’s work to fit one’s individual style than it is to build a show from a blank console. The process was time consuming and at many times confusing. As well-prepared as I had hoped I was, I needed support from the manual to perform many of the tasks.
Once the input order and bank layouts were modified, we began identifying and tracing the patching for the various outputs needed to run the show. We had to determine how the console had been configured to deliver the various internal digital, analog and AES digital outputs that were assigned to share various effects with the monitor console, run nearfield monitors, send record feeds and output audio to the Clair system. We bounced between the various onboard screens back to the manual and then to the rear panel chassis connectors finally succeeding in mapping and annotating the output configuration.
The remaining task was do perform a complete line check through both the SD8 and the AVID Profile monitor console. We assembled a splitter system and followed the patch order for each console. After a bit more tinkering and tweaking, we were extremely gratified when all the inputs and outputs finally came up in all the right places. We saved our console files and emailed both files to Clair Global in Lititz and in Nashville as well as to each other for backup. When we shut down the desks and packed everything up Chris and I were confident that we had created a workable starting setup for Salt Lake City.
Whether out of thoroughness or trepidation, I asked the guys at Soundworx if I could get one more day on the SD8 before leaving for the show. Don Garber, who runs the shop in Cerritos, gave me a time window and I was able to grab a few more hours of hands-on time with the SD8 console. I spent the majority of the time auditioning and modifying the reverbs and delays, writing macros for delay times, modifying channel EQ’s to my preferences and reworking the compressor setups. This turned out to be time well spent. In Salt Lake City, the band was on stage before we could do a full line check so it was a plug-and-go kind of day.
Knowing the Clair P.A. from the hundreds of shows I’ve mixed on it, the preprogrammed settings all worked out very well. With only minor modifications we powered through sound check. Seal put on a strong and energetic show that immensely pleased the crowd, the client and the producers. What a voice! Seal has great rapport with the crowd and he puts all he has into his performance. I am definitely hoping I get a chance to experience this show again very soon.
Safe travels.
