“It’s massive and intense,” Colin Pink says of Hans Zimmer Live tour, of which he is sitting at FOH. “I always say I don’t mix music; I mix emotion. If you get the emotional drive right, then the audience connect with the musicians and are more involved in the experience. It’s all about pulling those emotions, and Hans’ music is great for that.”
An engineer who rarely mixes anything under 100 inputs, Pink’s philosophical approach to such work makes it easier to understand why he’s so good.
Worldly Youth
Pink’s father was a pilot in the long-haul airline business, and he grew up in several countries. He ended up at the Milton Abbey School, in South West England, known for its strong arts program. From there he went to Guildhall School of Music and Drama, studying technical theater. At 25 he landed a sound technician’s job at the National Theatre in London. “I was there for 10 years and ended up as head of sound for the last two. Like most people you don’t ‘leave’ the National Theatre — you take a sabbatical and don’t come back,” he says with a laugh. He adds that he was there during Trevor Nunn’s reign, a knighted artistic director known for doing large scale musicals, and he considers himself lucky to gain valuable experiences during that period. “I flourished with those big shows with decent-sized orchestras.”
After a decade, he “wanted to see what the world outside was like and to see if I was of some value out there.” The world answered affirmatively. He would be hired by composer George Fenton to work on a tour of his soundtrack album from BBC’s The Blue Planet, performing in arenas. “They were amazing shows, with full symphony orchestras and 60-foot video screens” where they played along with the images of nature. He worked on shows on both sides of the pond including The History Boys and Oklahoma!
One fortuitous event was when Peter Gabriel’s FOH engineer Richard Sharratt was unavailable to mix the Brit Awards, Pink was asked to fill in. That year Zimmer did a 20-minute medley of his music. That helped launch the idea of a tour of his music, and Pink was hired for the first one. He has worked with all his live tours since.
You Can’t Hide
Zimmer, an EGOT-winning composer, has a vast, eclectic portfolio of music, Pink notes. “You’ve got a lot of styles and a lot of instruments — we have 180 inputs coming off the stage; on top of that I have 32 channels of playback with a load of effects for a total channel count of 247.”
This show consists of more than 30 orchestra and choir members plus a core band that includes pairs of drummers, percussionists, guitar players, bass players, and cello players. Add to that two keyboardists with one doubling on accordion and three violinists with one doubling on viola. Zimmer is playing keyboards and guitar as well, plus bass on one piece. Pink is mixing it all on a DiGiCo SD7 Quantum, with the optional theater software; he also has four SD racks, an SD-Mini-rack and an Orange Box in the signal chain.
The System
Supplying video, lighting and sound for the massive (and infinitely complex) tour is LMG Touring, with the audio aspects under the direction of system engineers Johan Schreuder and Dana Daniel. LMG operates on a scale well suited to the tour. They have offices in Orlando, Las Vegas and London and more than $175 million in inventory supporting top-end clientele including J. Cole, Paramore, Childish Gambino, Ariana Grande, Volbeat and Train along with many large-scale events and festivals.
The P.A. for this not-your-usual orchestral style production is formidable, consisting of left / right main hangs, with each side comprised of 14 L-Acoustics K1s, four K2 downfills and 12 KS28 flown subwoofers, along with serious side hangs, each having 24 Kara II enclosures per side. Two delay hangs (L/R) are each equipped with two of L-Acoustics new L2 line arrays. Front fills along the stage front are made up of seven L-Acoustics A10 Focus, flanked by two L-Acoustics A10 Wide speakers for seamless L/R edge fill. In addition to the 24 KS28 flown subs, 12 Danley Sound Labs double-12 DTS10 high-definition cinema ground subwoofers — with response down to 10 Hz — add plenty of feel-it-in-your-bones bottom-end reinforcement, an ideal complement to much of Zimmer’s film-oriented content.
The stages and rooms are big, and the system fits right into Pink’s mixing style. “Philosophically, I always think big rooms are easier than small rooms, because you have more control,” he says. “The downside is you can’t hide. A bigger room doesn’t make things sound better, it just allows you to hear the problems more, which you can then hopefully fix.” With this many instruments and those big sounds, it’s all about controlling the dynamic of the content. “How I do that is slightly unusual in that I don’t put a mastering chain on my left/right output like most people.”
The dynamics of a Zimmer concert can be challenging. There’s the core band, which has different dynamics than the drums and percussion section, which is different from any supplemental playback, which is different from that of the live orchestra. “So, I keep those four elements separate and put them through separate mastering chains so that I can wrangle them into the same dynamic space.”
Monitor World
Reprising his role from previous Hans Zimmer outings is monitor engineer Maurizio Gennari, mixing dozens of in-ear feeds from his DiGiCo SD7 Quantum console. The board is fitted with a DMI-KLANG card to expand Gennari’s palette with spatial 3D mixes to the performers via 32 Shure PSM1000 transmitters and 70 Shure IEM PSM1000 bodypack receivers.
The sE Connection
Pink has always been open to experiment to discover new tools to improve the show’s sonics and / or productivity, and orchestral miking presents a very specific set of audio challenges. “Whether you like it or not, when you’re miking an orchestra, you’re going to have 80% spill into everything else. And it’s great when you don’t have to worry about weird EQs happening off-axis,” Pink says. Enter sE Electronics. “The sE mics are very, very clean — and importantly for more orchestral shows, they have a very, very good off-axis response.” This directionality and clean signal combination made sE an ideal choice for Hans Zimmer Live.
For Luis Ribeiro‘s multi-percussion station, Colin opted for the Rupert Neve-designed, small-diaphragm condenser RN17s as overheads, supplemented with V Kicks and V Beats on the larger drums to get the low frequency information. “The V Beats and Kicks are really good when you have a dynamic player,” he says. “A lot of mics can pick up drums really well when they’re hit hard. If you’ve got dynamic players and they play gently, I’m get a lot more detail and dynamics out of the V Beats and Kicks than I would expect.”
Pink also selected large-diaphragm, side-address T1s for overheads on Lucy Landymore‘s drum kit. “The transients on them are amazing, with a natural top-end.” He supplemented those with small-diaphragm condensers sE8s on the hi-hats and V Beats and V Kicks on the toms. “I tend to use the V Kicks on floor toms as opposed to just on the kick. You just get a really nice full, round sound out of them.”
Timpani are critical to Hans Zimmer’s orchestral sound, and Aleksandra Šuklar’s timpani were miked with overhead sE4100s for a warmer, fuller sound. In addition, Pink used RNR1s to solve the tricky nature of timpani: you want to be further away to capture their resonance which can be problematic on a live stage. “The RNR1s get the tone and the smoothness of the timps, yet still have the bite.”
For a variety of woodwinds played by the masterful Pedro Eustache, Colin used sE8s. “They just are great on anything because they’re very transparent, very clean, and very fast. They just pick up what you want.”
Audio Storytelling
If you know anything about Zimmer’s music, you know it’s heavy on the synth. There are six keyboards on stage, plus there are added supplemental orchestral parts on certain pieces. Blending all these layers together is the challenge. A key tool for Pink is TC Electronic’s System M6000. “It has a mastering plug called the MD4 HD, which is a five-band compressor/limiter. The interesting thing is, it has a mode where rather than compressing the peaks, it compresses underneath the threshold and auto gains.” This brings up the fullness of the overall sound, without losing the peaks. “You can add low-level detail to the orchestra, but you have to be careful that you are not lifting spill from the open orchestra mics. It’s using those kinds of tricks that keeps the show exciting and vibrant and all glued together.”
Also helping Pink do his job are two of the new Fourier Audio transform.engines, which bring Dante-connected studio-grade audio software plugins to live productions. “It’s a nice intuitive plugin server.” He’s also using the TC Electronic reverb and FabFilter Pro-Q 3, plus multiband compressors on his solo strings. “With clip-on mics, I think of compression in terms of moving the mic away.” Then there are two Rupert Neve Designs Portico II, one across the playback group which adds a little width, and another he uses on the vocalists. These include the songs from Gladiator featuring Lisa Gerrard, Dune featuring Loire Cotler and The Lion King featuring Lebo M.
Pink’s background is in theater, and he notes how the storytelling aspect of Hans Zimmer Live plays a key role in the success of the shows. “From an audio point of view, locating the sound source is always important and there are a few systems available to help this, either by separating the signals or by delay imaging,” he explains. “These systems are rare in the arena circuit, as the P.A. is normally so much louder than sound from the stage.” Hans has percussionists and drummers all both downstage left and right, “so time aligning the speakers to the source is more of an issue. I use the Theater software in the desk as it has a crosspoint delay matrix. This allows me to split the stage into 15 zones. Then I have time to align each front fill to each zone. This approach blends in with the main P.A. better than you would expect, as it feels like you have a more coherent stage sound.”
Intimate and Big
In discussing how he sets up the desk, Pink says he has 120 snapshots for the 15 pieces that are 10 to 15 minutes long. He uses technology for the “housekeeping,” allowing him to just listen. “The center section of the DiGiCo has two banks of 12 faders. I use the top row for playback and effect groups and the bottom row for all the live elements as well as my main Masters. The ‘Master Section’ to the right always has my soloists on them. I use the snapshot automation to place whatever I need on these faders, so I always know where things are.”
This way he doesn’t have to think, he just sits there and feels.
“I never think in terms of loud and quiet, I think in terms of big and small. You’re trying to draw the audience in, and thinking in volume doesn’t do anything for the emotional journey. There are quiet bits and loud bits, but really, it’s about the intimate moments and the big moments.”
But no worries — despite the complexity, he’s having a good time. “It’s so much fun. Hans always says that with music you learn to play, and ‘play’ is the right word. Mixing is in the same vein, so it’s not work, it’s fun!”
The sold-out North American leg of Hans Zimmer Live wrapped up in October 2024 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. But if you missed the show, don’t despair — European dates for 2025 and 2026 are already on sale.
Hans Zimmer Live
AUDIO CREW
- Sound Company: LMG Touring
- FOH Engineer: Colin Pink
- Monitor Engineer: Maurizio Gennari
- FOH System Engineers: Johan Schreuder, Dana Daniel
- UHF/Wireless: Daniel Melcher
- Pro Tools: Frank Pollack
- Stage Techs: Christopher Rushman, Gracie Finch
- P.A Techs: Egypt Ali, Kevin Garcia, George Tzouanopoulos
P.A. GEAR
- Mains (per side): (16) L-Acoustics K1; (4) K2 downfills; (12) KS28 flown subs
- Side Hangs (per side): (24) L-Acoustics Kara II
- Delays: (2) L-Acoustics L2 / side
- Front Fills: (7) L-Acoustics A10 Focus, (2) A10 Wide
- Ground Sub: (12) Danley Sound Labs DTS10
FOH GEAR
- FOH Console: Digico SD7 Quantum with Theater Software
- Outboard Gear: (2) Rupert Neve Portico II Bus Processors; TC M6000 System (2) Fourier Audio Transform Engines
MON GEAR
- Monitor Console: DiGiCo SD7 Quantum
- Outboard Gear: KLANG:Konductor; SSL Fusion Processor
- RF Mics: (16) Shure Axient ADX1; (36) Axient D beltpack transmitters
- IEM Hardware: (32) Shure PSM1000 transmitters; (70) PSM1000 receivers
