It’s a big, big band, and somebody’s got to mic it. And that someone is James “Jimbo” Neal.
How big? Well, it’s “just” one guitarist — though when the guitarist is Brian Setzer, that’s all you need. Then there are the stand-up basses and the drummer. Fair enough. But it’s the 13-piece horn and wind section that makes things interesting. Like any skilled artisan, Neal makes it look easy: “With the right mic on the right instruments, all you can do is mess up,” he declares. “At that point, it’s my game to lose, and I’ve really fallen in love with the Royer mics.”
The miking is the “thing,” as between Setzer’s high expectations and playing in radically different rooms every night with different P.A. speakers, it’s the one constant Neal has. “They call it ‘sound reinforcement for a reason,” Neal says. “My job is to reinforce Brian’s message. The audience is there to see him sing and play, and while the word ‘orchestra’ is in the title, it’s still a rock ‘n’ roll show.”
So he focuses on Setzer, and then brings everything up around that. “I’m blessed in the sense that the horn players play very dynamically. These are all studio guys, and they know when to be loud and proud, and know when to pull back, so once I set their levels, I pretty much leave them as they are except for their solos.”
The Mics Do the Job
Neal started his career sneaking into clubs in Buffalo, NY to listen to music at the age of 15. A few years later, he bought a 1972 Les Paul (which he still owns) from a local musician, and his parting words to the guitarist were, “if you ever need any help with anything…”
“A few days later, he gave me a call,” Neal says. “They needed help with a show, and already had a lighting guy, so by process of elimination, I became their sound guy.”
Neal sat behind that six-channel Tapco mixer and never looked back. For years, he had a production company, but by 2008, he was itching to get back out on the road. Soon he was full-time with Setzer, working on Stray Cats reunions between gigs for other artists including Stray Cats’ Lee Rocker and Dave Stewart, formerly with the Eurythmics.
For the last two years, Neal has been using the Yamaha CL5 with two Rio3224 stageboxes, which he likes because, in addition to the live show, he’s recording every performance to Steinberg Nuendo Live. A key component to the main rig is the Audinate’s Dante, a solution that allows him to network easily. “I can record up to 64 tracks each way through one Ethernet connection!” he says. “There are some days I still can’t get my head around how great it is.”
For an 18-piece band (including two backup singers, known as “The Vixens”), they travel relatively light. Sound Image is supporting them, and they get it all in two trucks. The “trick” is he’s picking up the amps and speakers at the house every day. “It’s a double-edge sword,” he says. “On the one hand, I get to hear a lot of different systems and I can learn what I like and what I don’t, but on the other hand, it always takes a while to tune the room.”
Sound Image is providing the monitor console and all the wedges and speakers on stage, plus two sets of wireless IEMs for the drummer Tony Pia and one for musical director/tenor sax player Tim Messina. (Messina also steps out from the bandstand to come play with Brian downstage, along with Pia playing a standup cocktail kit).
All horns and winds are individually miked with Shure Beta 98’s. “We recently got 14 new ones, as you need to replace those after three or four years of constantly blowing into those condensers.” When the sax players pick up their clarinets, Neal has Royer R-101s ribbon mics ready which when they lean in a little bit for them, which more than do the job. He take’s advantage of the R-101’s figure-8 patterns to provide rejection, and he can get those woodwinds nice and loud — but more importantly, warm.
That Great Drum Sound
For the drummer, Neal looks to avoid that big rock and roll huge kick drum sound, and tries to find something in between that big sound and a traditional jazz band sound. “We have Shure Beta 52’s mounted inside the kick drums with a Kelly Shu kick drum mounting system.” The snare gets a SM57 on top and a Mojave MA-101 underneath it, though it’s the Mojave that’s the star in Neal’s book. “I’m going to change the world one snare drum at a time with that mic,” he says. “I flip it out of phase, and then it doesn’t need any EQ, and that just saves me a lot of time.” He also uses two sets of the MA-101s on the high hats.
Then he cables up two Royer R-122 active ribbon mics. “They have the preamp in them, and they are active with +10 dB of gain. Then I use two Royer SF-24s as true overheads, and that also helps me with the snare and toms, a lot because there’s that nice bit of space between them.”
But that drummer is surrounded on either side with some serious noise coming at the beat position. “I do try to get those overheads as low as I can without getting the drummer’s way, but the beauty of the Royer’s is they are in figure-8 patterns, and so you’ve get that negative on the backside so there’s not too much bleed. You can hear a little horn through them, sure, but it’s mostly the drums and they sound great.”
Under less experienced hands, that setup would entice the feedback gods to run amok, but by carefully getting them nice and low, he doesn’t have to crank them too high, so that’s avoided. As to feedback in general, it’s daunting… Neal has get 52 open mics on stage at any given time, and using different house speakers every performance, he uses every trick up his sleeve to keep feedback at bay. “But you don’t want to tune the room so much it that the whole show starts to sound like monitor or side fill or something, so it has to be done just right.”
For the standup King double bass Johnny Hatton plays, there’s a custom pickup under the bridge, and then one on the back of the neck for that “rockabilly slap.” Neal recently switched to a Sennheiser 421 for the amp as “Johnny likes the low end — and this just goes back to finding the right match between instrument and mic.”
Setzer keeps it remarkably simple, playing through a 1961 Fender Bassman amp (he has two on stage in case one goes out). Then it’s just an old Roland Space Echo, but no other effects. Neal puts a Royer R-121 and a Mojave Audio MA-201fet to work on it, liking the combination of the ribbon and the condenser, which he says makes his life easy “with my EQ; or should I say, my lack of EQ,” he smiles.
And Setzer plays so well that the solos come out just because he digs in on them. “I ride the solos, but not as much as you’d think I’d have to.”
Keeping 18 People Happy
Monitor engineer Eric Scott went to school to be a recording engineer, but soon after realized that while lots of people wanted him to “intern” at their studio, that wasn’t going to pay the rent. Soon he was working the clubs in his hometown of New Orleans, eventually moving to monitor engineering, which he’s been doing now for eight years. “I’ve been with Brian since 2009, and the gig kind of found me,” he says.
Like Neal, it’s his second year working with a Yamaha CL5. “It does the job — lots of horsepower in a compact space, and space is crucial to my world because the RF rack that has to sit there as well — a rack of 16 channels of [Shure] UR4D.”
Setzer’s mix on stage is mostly vocals and backing vocals. “And I ride lots of horn solos all around the stage through the Sound Image MA-112 wedges driven by Crown I-TECH 4×3500 amps. The sidefills are VUE h-15, and they are full of guitar with a little bass. The band plays old-school-style, so there is a nice pocket that surrounds his vocal mic. The girls and bass player are in the eight MA-112 wedges as well.” And not only does Setzer shun using in-ear’s, he wears 15 dB earplugs.
The rest are all IEM’s, with the horns and winds all getting their own headphone mixer so they can hear what they want. “The biggest challenge for me is keeping my wireless straight,” he says. “Otherwise, it’s just keeping 18 people happy on stage and everything straight with 54 inputs and 16 outputs… so yeah, my hands are full!”
The size of the rooms vary wildly. They’ll play a 650-seat showroom one night, a 2,500-seat theater with a big balcony the next, and then an arena. “And don’t get be started about when we play in the round!” he laughs.
It’s just Neal and Scott. “We have local stagehands do the physical lifting and set-up, but I personally put away each and every mic,” Neal says. “I want to make sure they are all put away properly!”
Setzer likes to tell the audience “rockabilly is the blues with three cups of coffee.” Neal could not agree more.
Brian Setzer 10th Anniversary Christmas Rocks Tour
Sound Company: Sound Image
FOH
FOH Engineer: James “Jimbo” Neal
Console: Yamaha CL5 with two Rio3224 stageboxes
Recording Software: Nuendo Live
MONITORS
Monitor Engineer: Eric Scott
Console: Yamaha CL5
Amps: Crown 4×3500 amps
Wedges: (8) Sound Image MA-112
Sidefills: VUE Audiotechnik h-15’s
IEM’s: Sennheiser SR 300
Hardwire Headphone Amps: PreSonus HP 4
MICROPHONES
Main Drum Kit: Kick drums, Shure Beta 52’s; snare top, Shure SM57; snare bottom, Mojave MA-101; toms, Sennheiser e-904’s; ride and hi-hat, Mojave MA-101; center overhead, Royer SF-24 (stereo mic); spaced L/R overheads, Royer R-122’s; glockenspiel, Royer R-101.
Cocktail Drum Kit: Kick, Audix D-6; snare, Shure SM57; floor tom, Sennheiser e904; cymbal, Shure KSM 137.
Guitar Amp: Mojave MA-301 and Royer R-121.
Bass Amp: Sennheiser MD-421
Bass Direct: Radial JDI’s (or when wireless, Shure UR1’s) with separate pickups to capture slap and notes.
Brass and Woodwinds: Shure UR1 wireless with Beta 98/HC’s
Sax Section: L/R AKG 414’s
Brian Setzer Vocal Mic: Shure SM58
Background Vocal Mics: Shure SM58’s
RF Mics L/R: Shure UR4D with SM58 capsules
Audience Mics L/R: AKG 414’s and (2) shotguns
