“The show was insane,” says Cameron Scurek, ILLENIUM’s FOH engineer and crew chief. “It was a culmination of everything we’ve been working toward for six years, and it was about as flawless as I think we’ve ever had a show go. We were over 120 channels with five guests through three sets on two stages.”
The show was ILLENIUM Trilogy:Colorado. ILLENIUM is Nick Miller, a DJ who is increasingly branching out with a band. This show kicked off a tour that featured music from his April album release, ILLENIUM. But the record-setting attendance of 50,000 EDM fans who gathered at Denver’s Empower Field at Mile High Stadium on a Saturday night in June experienced a special show indeed: Three sets, the first consisting of music from ILLENIUM’s first two albums, then a second featuring music from albums three and four, then finally, the third with his latest music and five-piece band.
Denver-area based Brown Note Productions made it happen. Their history with the rising Grammy-nominated star goes back to 2018. “Post-Covid, we were there for him when he put on what the first concert at the new Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in July of 2021,” say Ryan Knutson. Knutson is particularly proud as the artist originates from and is based in the Denver area. “He’s grown considerably, which has been fun to watch and be a part of that. And for this Trilogy show, he really set himself apart by not having support acts.”
Club Feel in a Sold-out Stadium
Matt Brown, Brown Note’s P.A. designer and system engineer, has a long history with Knutson. The two worked together on Sound Tribe Sector 9 tours in the aughts, when Knutson served as FOH and production manager for the band. When Knutson started Brown Note Productions with his wife Sara, Brown freelanced for the new company before joining full time in 2018. He went out with ILLENIUM on their first big tour in 2019.
“This is by far their biggest tour, and their show at Empower was their biggest stadium show so far,” Brown says. “Pivoting from DJing to performing with a full band was new and exciting, and it was really well-orchestrated.” The artist had a specific, challenging goal: “What was different than other stadium shows is he really wanted to do something that felt intimate, like being in a club.” That meant the sound coverage and mix needed to provide all listeners in all areas of the stadium with the same warm, exciting, dance club experience. “That meant having the right boxes, and the right amount of them, to ensure perfect coverage — and because of the genre, having a lot of quality low-end was paramount.” That meant a d&b audiotechnik system.
As the saying goes, the good ones make it look easy, but quite a bit of effort went into this important show. “For us, it’s all about the planning,” Brown says. This means getting everything worked out way ahead of time, so it all runs smoothly. The site survey is important, as is mapping the venue. “I used d&b’s ArrayCalc array software, which draws in three dimensions for the entire venue and creates SPL metrics,” along with alignment, rigging, all other tasks associated with an audio job like this. “It’s so accurate that you can set up all the boxes and even handle delay timing that is within milliseconds. If you were ever in a situation where you had to just rely on software, this would be the one to go to.”
Teamwork!
That said, he emphasizes the success of this event was all about the team. “What’s paramount to the success of a show like this is the attention to detail that the entire audio crew brings. They are the ones that make sure the design is implemented accurately and they are looking at all the details from the height of the boxes to exactly where they are placed. I really give my team kudos for making all the planning a reality.”
In addition to being a d&b partner, Brown Note also partners with L-Acoustics, making them one of the only companies in the country that are licensed for both. So when they needed more, they employed some L-Acoustics speakers for the delay towers and monitors. “Our goal is always to use the right combination of products, so we’re good at getting equal tonality from front to back and having it be completely accurate.” He adds that it was more than choice because “frankly, we’re also doing a lot of other shows, too!” he says with a laugh. “But on a more technical level, the L-Acoustics K1 is really the right choice for those delay towers because they are especially great with the high-end and really kept a nice shimmer and quality clarity going to the back of the venue.”
The System
The system was serving 180 degrees of the stadium with three hangs: 24 d&b GSL mains (18 GSL 8 over six GSL 12), 20 d&b GSL sides (14 GSL 8 over six GSL 12), 12 d&b KSL 180 (six KSL 8 Over six KSL 12), and then 10 flown d&b SL subs. The subs flown in between the sides to provide plenty of low-end coverage was a priority. “We had a total of 60 subwoofers placed almost the width of a football field. That’s quite a bit of low-end, yet the goal was not to blow anyone out of the water, but we just wanted to achieve equal coverage,” Brown explains.
The Brown Note team was fortunate to be in the stadium five days before the show, and it turned out they really needed it, as bad weather during that time meant they ended up with little time to spare. “But then the show day came, it was a beautiful day, and we had achieved everything we needed and had plenty of time to fine tune the system and get it optimized so the show could be perfect.”
FOH with Outboard Toys Galore
Cameron Scurek originally hails from Colorado Springs, having grown up in Fort Collins, and for the last 10 years has been based in Denver. “I was just a nerd,” he says of his youth. “I liked stereos, gadgets, tools, and things like that. After high school, I had some friends who had a band and I liked playing with the recording stuff. This led them to think I knew how to set up speakers and run a live show.”
Well, he sure figured that out. Scurek next did some work with a local electronic rock band including some festival work. At the 2017 Sonic Bloom Festival in Hummingbird Ranch, CO, he happened to meet Chuck Williams, production/lighting designer for ILLENIUM. “At that point they were gearing up to their first tour with a band, and he brought me in to do their mix — not sure why, as I really wasn’t that good at that point! [Laughs] But it did give me a chance to develop my skills.” Again, he figured that out.
Today, Scurek wears many hats, because although he’s full time for ILLENIUM — which in addition to mixing, includes working on the 11,000-square-foot warehouse currently being renovated as a studio/rehearsal/pre-production space — he clocks in over at Brown Note. “For them, I’ll do some one-offs at Red Rocks and other work they need done.”
According to Scurek, this was a remarkable show. The touring band includes DJ Nick Miller (ILLENIUM) who also plays guitar and drum pad, lead guitarist Taylor Dearman, keyboard/percussionist Trevor Christensen, drummer Nicholas Totton, violinist Bonnie Brooksband and vocalist Annika Wells. Bass parts are sampled.
Scurek’s console of choice is the DiGiCo Quantum 5. “I’ve been using it nonstop for five years, and it is by far my favorite platform,” he says. “It’s especially necessary for this show because of the complexity of the routing and all the samples and triggers involved — I literally don’t know how I could do this show at all on a different platform.” He adds additional DiGiCo pieces, including two SD-Racks, a D-Rack and an Orange Box that converts Dante to optical. “Everything is running on an opto loop, with myself and Matt [Burhite, monitor engineer] controlling head amp control on our own SD-Rack and gain sharing the D-Rack to handle drum triggers, talkbacks, and support channels.” For the Trilogy show, they added an additional SD-Rack at FOH for the B Stage as well as another SD Rack on the main stage for the second set’s DJ rig and guest vocalist, as their tour racks are completely full.
But it doesn’t end there: “I am using a s*** ton of outboard.”
Scurek sums all of the instrument groups through the Rupert Neve 5050 Mixer going into the Rupert Neve Master Bus Processor followed by a LGS Audio Tube EQ. “I have the new Solid State Logic The Bus+ inserted on my playback summing group on the Rupert Neve 5049 Satellite Summing Mixer, and I am using it to glue all of electronic elements together,” he notes. “My drums are elaborate, with all the tom shells hitting dbx 160As. The kick and the snare mics go through an Elysia Envelope Transient Shaper into dbx 160XTs. All of this is then summed with drum samples and run through an Overstayer MAS into an API 2500 for some parallel compression and them into a Maag Audio EQ. I was really chasing a hybrid sound on my drums for this tour that fall somewhere between arena rock and a drum machine.”
On the string channels, Scurek is using the SSL Fusion Processor, which he finds invaluable for taming transients. “My vocal chain is the standard pop vocal these days of a DPA d:facto into another Neve 5045 followed by the Neve Shelford channel. The preamp on the Shelford can’t be beat.” The primary keyboard on stage is a Nord Stage 3, which he runs through a Midas XL42 unit to get that warm piano tone with depth. All of the outboard gear is fed via a Focusrite RedNet system. “For P.A. tuning and matrixing I recently switched to the Outline Newton, and I don’t see myself going back any time soon. The filter flexibility is unrivaled.” For FX, he’s using a Bricasti m7 for vocal verbs and Waves H verb for all of the instruments.
Over in monitor world, Burhite has eight channels of Shure Axient and 16 channels of PSM 1000. For the Triology shows, they add an additional eight channels to both of those. It’s all mixed through a DiGiCo Quantum 338.
Club in a Stadium
“Historically, EDM hasn’t been done in stadiums, and the genre has a certain intensity and power in clubs, especially the low end,” Scurek says. “But it was really put together well thanks to Matt [Brown], who has been a friend and mentor to me over the years. He did a phenomenal job with the sound design.”
That B Stage was in the middle of the stadium in the round, and they were still using the P.A. at the end of the stadium, which led to some monitoring and time delay changes that they were able to handle by “just keeping it simple,” Scurek explains. That stage was set up 15 feet behind FOH.
Scurek also credits the team. “I have Davis Darrington, my really good system tech, who handles the day-to-day work, and I handle the nitty gritty of design.” He adds that the rest of the audio team “have been awesome and they are the only reason I can wear all these hats and still be successful.”
“This show was especially personal to me because I got to take my children and show them the scale and scope of a show like this, and it really clicked,” Knutson says. “Seeing my 10-year-old go through the feelings that happen at one’s first concert was a special moment for me, reminding me of my first connection. You don’t suddenly end up in the music industry unless you’re connected in some way.”
AUDIO CREW
- Sound Company: Brown Note Productions
- FOH Engineer/Tour System Engineer/Audio Crew Chief: Cameron Scurek
- Trilogy Show System Engineer and Designer: Matt Brown
- Monitor Engineer/Stage Manager: Matt Burhite
- Lead Tour System Tech/FOH Tech: Davis Darrington
- Monitor/RF Tech: Scott Reuter
- P.A. Fly Tech: Collin Elliot
- Trilogy Show P.A. Fly Techs: Hayes Laporte, Ryan Moncrief, Cole Connell
PA GEAR
- Main: (20) d&b audiotechnik GSL8, (12) d&b GSL12 Loudspeaker
- Off Hang: (12) d&b KSL8, (12) d&b KSL12
- Ground Subs: (24) d&b SL-GSUB
- Fill Speakers: (12) d&b V10P
- Ancillary Speaker System: (2) d&b Y10P, d&b Q-SUB
- Amps: (34) d&b D80, (14) d&b D40
FOH GEAR
- FOH Console: DiGiCo Quantum5
- FOH Local Rack: Waves Axis One Rack, Bricasti, PSM, ULXD
- Console Stage Racks: (2) DiGiCo SD-RACK 192kHz, DiGiCo D-Rack 96kHz
MON GEAR
- Monitor Console: DiGiCo Q338
- Monitor Local Rack: Waves Axis One Rack V1, Klang, Artist Pro Tools playback
- Monitors: (6) L-Acoustics KARA II, (4) L-Acoustics SB18 Subs
- Monitors Support: L-AcousticsX15 HIQ
- Monitor Amps: L-Acoustics LA-RAK II, (3) LA12 Amplified Controller
Additional Gear for Trilogy: Colorado
- 48 d&b audiotechnik GSL8
- 12 d&b GSL12
- 56 d&b SL-SUB
- 24 L-Acoustics K1
- 32 L-Acoustics K2
- 24 L-Acoustics KS28 Subs
- 12 L-Acoustics LA-RAK II / 3x LA12 Amplified Controller Racks
- 48 d&b D80 Amplifiers
