Four incredible musicians with illustrious careers have come together as BEAT, performing the music of King Crimson’s 1980’s catalog — Discipline, Beat and Three Of A Perfect Pair — for this truly magical tour of musicianship. Former King Crimson members Adrian Belew (vocals & guitar) and Tony Levin (bass) join together with guitar virtuoso Steve Vai and Tool drummer Danny Carey. We caught the band on a return stop to the Bay Area where the tour started.
At FOH
Sound, layout and reliability are the main factors for FOH engineer Frank Trzaskowski’s choice of a console for his touring clients. As someone who personally owned quite a few analog mixing consoles, especially of the original Midas brand, this is not an easy choice these days, he notes. “On quite a few digital consoles the sound is not what I envision honestly,” he says. “The Avid Venue S6L platform comes closest to my ideals and therefore has been with me for many tours since it entered the market. The platform certainly has the best Waves integration of all the current consoles, and Waves analog emulations like the Abbey Road and SSL packages are extremely important for me to achieve the specific sound I hope to achieve. For a show like BEAT, the easy setup of many custom layers certainly helps to navigate through this very complex show.” Plenty of tactile control for fast access is equally important for Trzaskowski, as he doesn’t use any snapshots and sees mixing a show as a unique performance rather than a sequence of recalled events.
Like many of Trzaskowski’s generation of sound engineers, he started as a musician with his own band at a young age and then changed over to become a live sound engineer in the mid 1980’s. Originating from Germany, he mostly worked with European bands, then moving to the U.S., he toured constantly with acts such as Ritchie Blackmore, Ted Nugent, Dokken, and as a TM/FOH engineer with Extreme since 2015. A few of his notable tours in the last few years include Sons of Apollo, Celebrating David Bowie (with Todd Rundgren and Adrian Belew), Generation Axe (featuring Zakk Wylde, Yngwie Malmsteen, Tosin Abasi, Steve Vai and Nuno Bettencourt) and numerous Steve Vai solo tours. “Touring in over 75 countries I will be forever thankful to all the great artists who gave me these opportunities,” he says.
Clair Global is the sound provider for this tour. Bringing the BEAT tour to many international markets, Trzaskowski was looking for consistency and excellent support worldwide. “Clair Global — and especially Robert Drewes — have always been there for me with great tour support. Meyer Sound and d&b are my preferred P.A. systems for a tour like this, and we ended up having one of those two brands available for about 60% of the shows. Quite a few theaters have in-house installations, and for the most part these worked fine as well. At the end of the day the unfortunate mix positions under balconies, corners and against back walls in most theaters are a bigger obstacle than having a different brand of speakers.”
The two things Trzaskowski was specifically looking for on the BEAT tour were the employment of cardioid sub configurations and the addition of in fills (at least 5-6 feet off the ground) and dedicated lip fills. “This was a seated show, but by the end of the night, the excited crowds were up on their feet, and theater-style lip fills become immediately obsolete for any people in the front other than the first row. A dedicated under-balcony fills matrix controlled from the S6L played another big role in these difficult acoustic environments,” he added.
“My FOH rack has the latest Waves Titan server and a Neve Master Bus Transformer, which I use on my band-only master mix (all instruments except vocals). I had used the Neve Master Bus Processor before but switched to the MBT after being very happy with it on the last Extreme tour. I especially like the option to use Red and Blue Silk at the same time, helping me to create analog character galore. The BEAT tour reminded me more than any that the path to a great mix is to know the music in and out, that you should not be shy to move faders up and down and to immerse yourself with sound to become part of the band rather than to be an outside entity. You need to feel it to be able to mix it right.”
For Adrian Belew, Trzaskowski brought in a Lily P4D, which is a pressure sensitive pad placed in front of his foot pedals that deactivates a gate on Adrian’s vocal microphone when stepped on. “In combination with Waves PSE, they work wonders. This allows us to minimize bleed into the vocal mic when he isn’t singing. Tony Levin has one as well. They are newly added for this tour and have been a wonderful addition,” he says.
“The members of BEAT are great human beings, and that is a big part of why they each have the careers they have. Adrian [Belew] delivers stellar vocals each and every night and is probably one of the most creative guitar players I know, with an endless arsenal of exotic sounds. He never stops surprising you. Tony [Levin] is a monster on bass. He’s a perfectionist even at rehearsals, working out his patches for bass, stick and synth. His feel and timing are outstanding, and that helps enormously to make a band mix sound tight. Steve [Vai] and Danny [Carey] changed the original King Crimson sound into something more heavy, more rock. Their swing and swagger brought new life into these classics, and it was obvious that this was a more American interpretation of the material. Steve is extraordinary every night, and Danny is one of the few drummers who can be a hard hitter but brings finesse at the same time. A dream come true for every sound engineer, and certainly an absolute career highlight for me.”
Monitor World
Monitor engineer Nick Kearns has been mixing a little over 10 years, most of which have actually been at FOH. For the past five years, Kearns did production manager/FOH duties for artist Mitchell Tenpenny, and before that he mixed for Eric Paslay. “I have always prided myself on having the skillset necessary to be successful at either end of the snake, and over the years, I’ve often mixed monitors for one-offs or as a house engineer at festivals. Frank and I actually met on a short tour where I was the monitor engineer, and when he asked me to be a part of this crew, I was more than happy to take on the role.”
Kearns thinks it is always important to have a conversation with each band member at the beginning of a tour. “At rehearsals, I had individual times to discuss needs and wants with each band member, as well as work on getting their tones and blends with their stage volume to be exactly what they wanted in their ears before we started as a group. For example, Danny [Carey] loves his mix to feel as open as possible, which we achieved through both ambient mics as well as in the box reverbs on the kit and whole band, while other band members prefer less or no additional reverb of effects.”
Working with this band from a musician standpoint is like watching a master class. Listening to them play together and off each other is exceptional, notes Kearns. “From a mix standpoint, it became very apparent early on into rehearsals that due to how complex and dynamic the music is, what players aren’t hearing can be as important as what they are hearing. These compositions have so many different patterns, levels and timbres that are constantly changing. Sometimes players are really locked into something complex together, and sometimes they are playing radically different parts from one another. To account for this, I used a fair amount of console automation to shift volume levels, channel processing, pan positions, and some effects processing throughout pieces of the show in order to give players a dynamic mix that delivers them exactly what they feel they need to perform their best and focus on the music at any given moment.”
Both Adrian Belew and Tony Levin are singing using Shure SM58 mics. Adrian’s Jazz Chorus-120 guitar amp has two placed Sennheiser 609s mics. “Wedges placed on each side of his amp are used as pass-throughs from his fractal setup he uses with his Parker fly guitar. They allow him to feel some air pressure behind him like he would if he was using a traditional amp setup,” Kearns says.
Guitarist Steve Vai has two Carvin Legacy 212 cabs loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s, used for his main stereo guitar rig, while his JC-120 is used to blend with his various clean sounds. “There are also two HeadRush powered speakers outside of those cabs which are used for Steve’s various synth sounds. The JC-120 and Carvin cabs are miked with Shure SM57s, and we take a direct out of the HeadRush speakers,” Kearns adds.
Tony Levin is using a Neural DSP Quad Cortex for all his processing on the bass, Chapman stick and synth. “We take direct outputs off of the Quad Cortex for everything,” Kearns continues. “Similar to Adrian’s wedges, the Ampeg VB-115 cab with V3 head is used for some stage volume and air pressure feel.”
Danny Carey’s drum kit mics consist of a Shure SM57 (on snare top & bottom and center roto-tom), a SM81 (hi-hat) and four tubular Dragon drums (originally owned by King Crimson’s Bill Bruford) miked through the bottom ports with SM57s. There’s also a Sennheiser 904 (floor tom), Sennheiser 421 (timpani), AKG 414s (overheads, set to cardioid), a Shure Beta91 and an sE BL8 (inside the kick drum). “Carey’s six Mandala drum pads were custom developed by MIT engineer/Synesthesia founder Vince De Franco,” Kearns notes.
Band IEMs are JH Roxanne’s (Steve Vai and Danny Carey); Tony Levin is on Ultimate Ears UE 6s and Adrian Belew on UE250s. All transmit for the tour is using Shure PSM1000s with P10R+ packs. “Adrian has always used generic [universal-fit] IEMs since making the switch from wedges and likes that they allow for more ambiance compared to custom molds,” Kearns says. “However, we have discussed making a switch to a custom mold in the future.”
It’s a Wrap!
“I’ve been enjoying working with the whole BEAT team, all at the top-tier skill level with a wealth of knowledge in their given departments, but also great human beings,” Kearns concludes. “Cool tours are great, but ones with great people are the best, and that is what this has been.”
The North American BEAT TOUR wrapped up on Dec. 18, 2024 at the Yaamava’ Theater in Highland, CA. At presstime, the only confirmed 2025 date was for May 6 at the Movistar Arena in Santiago, Chile.
Crew
- Sound Company: Clair Global
- FOH Engineer/Tour Manager: Frank Trzaskowski
- Monitor Engineer: Nick Kearns
- Miles Copeland Business Manager: Stevo Glendinning
- Production Assistant: Randy Walker
- Electronics Tech: Tim Dawson
- Adrian Belew Guitar Tech/Tony Levin Bass Tech: Thomas Nordegg
- Steve Vai Guitar Tech: Doug MacArthur
- Danny Carey Drum Tech: Joe Slaby
Gear
FOH
- Console: Avid Venue S6L-24C
- In-console effects: Waves, Abbey Road & SSL packages
- Outboard Rack Effects: Waves Titan server, Neve Master Bus Transformer
MON
- Console: Avid Venue S6L-24C
- Vocal Mics: Shure SM58, additional mics: Shure SM57, SM81, Shure Beta91, Sennheiser 609s, Sennheiser 904, Sennheiser 421, AKG 414, sE BL8
- IEMs: JH Roxanne, Ultimate Ears UE 6, UE250 w/ Shure PSM1000s with P10R+ packs
More photos by Steve Jennings:
