“Combining the shows is going wonderfully well,” Howard Page declares, as the current Paul Simon/Sting tour was getting underway in early February. He’s an honest man so there’s no reason to not take him at his word, but on paper, the current Paul Simon/Sting tour sure looks complicated and daunting. First, you have two very different performers with different styles of music (though both share a devotion to great songwriting). They perform together. They perform separately with their respective bands. Their bands perform separately and apart. Simon does Sting songs. Sting does Simon songs. At one point Simon’s guitarist joins Sting for a tune. It’s a spin-the-bottle of possibilities.
Now for math: 2 + 2 + 17 = 142.
There are two separate FOH and two monitor engineers — a total of four ping-ponging duties song-to-song when they all aren’t working in unison for 17 musicians requiring 142 inputs.
Howard Page of Clair is FOH for Sting, with Michael “Coach” Conner FOH for Paul Simon. Pete Buess and Bob Lewis are the monitor engineers, respectively.
Lab Rats
Conner started recording high school buddies 30 years ago, and after he graduated he borrowed $2,500 from his grandmother for an L.A. recording school. He was hired by Leslie Chew to be the second engineer at the Kitchen Sink studio, which he says was his real education. He’s been FOH for Simon for four years.
As for the setup this tour, Conner admits, “reality surprised everyone. I was never concerned about Howard, since his approach to mixing in an arena is the same as mine. The acts, however, have very different elements, and we were concerned that there might be too much contrast when transitioning between them. This became an even bigger concern when we learned that it wasn’t going to be two individual sets and we would both be onstage together for most of the show. We decided early on we would both feed the PA at the same time. I have never done this sort of thing in an arena show, but it’s really not much different than the pre-automation days in the studio when you incorporated a second set of hands on the console.”
When the two FOH engineers got to rehearsals in New York, they sent each other a feed of their two mixes that were combined with each of their own mixes to simulate what they would send to the P.A. “It took a few minutes to determine proper gain structure, but other than that, it was painless. So what we were left with was a fine level of control that was adaptable to anything the artists threw at us. With this many inputs, panning and placement is critical and constantly changing. This setup allows for it.”
Page is one of a team of senior directors at Clair, specialty: “the practical side” of making speakers. His nearly 40 years in the business starts down under, where he was a partner at Jands Audio in Australia. He came stateside in 1989 and worked for Showco until they were bought out by Clair in 2000.
“I like to get out and actually mix live sound, as there is no better laboratory than the road,” he says. “You can engineer something in the shop, but there’s value in putting it to work yourself.” And this is tour is quite a lab.
Conner works with a DiGiCo SD7 board while Page works with a Studer Vista 5SR, my favorite,” he says. (Full disclosure: Page advised Studer on the 5SR.) Page too, agrees the rehearsal was key to the successful tour. “I came up with a way to digitally matrix the two front of house mixing consoles so both are active at all times, both feeding equally into the P.A. And all have the ability to separately control the total balance of the P.A. we’re using. In many ways it’s not unlike how festivals are done in Europe.”
The Matrixing System is the Claire LM 44 that has the ability to separately clock pairs of inputs. “The DiGiGo and my Studer can both be plucked from one another, but it is tricky to set up,” Page explains. “It took a while to get the levels to match, and we spent a lot of time getting it all to create a seamless mix.” It seems to have paid off. “It’s all working reliably and accurately for every single show.”
The P.A. is the latest generation of the Clair i-5, which Page admits is getting some tweaking from the real-life world of arena touring. “There’s a lot of engineering advances being applied to this particular system, and now we get to make improvements based on what’s happening in the real world. We’re in arenas, we’re listening to the show, we’re learning what’s behind door number two — it’s a great opportunity.” The Clair i-3’s are being used for the side systems offering the 140-degree wide dispersion, and in some of the bigger arenas they are getting up to 240 degrees of dispersion with “no problem.”
Conner and Page are old school. But a system tech? They don’t need no stinkin’ system tech. “I’m my own engineer, and I’m used to doing it all myself, and so is Michael,” Page states.
Defying Expectations
Looking back, it’s hard to have not seen this tour as a sure thing. There are only 21 dates, and while it’s partly due to Sting’s schedule and his need to spend time in Chicago on his upcoming musical, The Last Ship, it’s also because there was uncertainty as to how the pairing would be received. Well, the jury is in. “Now both are really excited about it, the reviews are great, and the crowds are going nuts,” Page says. “It’s 2:40 minutes of show that defies expectations.”
While understandably concerned, Conner says that as soon as that combined elements were first heard in that rehearsal, he knew it was going to be a sweet tour. “It was a Sting arrangement, and he added a guitar from Paul’s band, and Howard and I were facing each other while his near fields were on I would use headphones and vise versa. We added the guitar, I found an open spot for it panned it right and adjusted the level slightly. Howard looked up at me and nodded that was the moment we realized we were going to enjoy this.”
Next to no glitches, a few songs being moved around, it’s been smooth sailing coming out of rehearsal. In no small part is all this due to the veterans driving it all. Page: “The biggest thing I preach to up-and-coming engineers is the basics of sound, that what is coming out of the console must be reproduced in the speakers. The art of modern day concert sound is tuning and optimizing the sound system. I’m doing that through a lot of tricks, taking care of the bottom end, producing a very clean sound, music that is true through the midrange. There’s a natural inherent rise in output level in the 100 to 500 Hz [range] that needs to be taken into account. You need to realize that some of that frequency space needs to be clean and accurate.”
Another benefit to having this pair of veterans dialing in the channels is that they’ve played all these venues before — they know them and their quirks. But Page doesn’t deny one perk: while there’s no such thing as a blank check, they got whatever they needed. “Sometimes you’re limited on what you can bring out to things like truck space, but this was not that kind of situation. The goal was perfection, and there was no skimping.”
Page demurred in going through every detail of his equipment list, but he did say they were using DPA d:facto II mics. “I love them, even though they are very expensive. I’m using the DPA’s on Sting’s vocals, based on a recommendation from a studio engineer, and they are beautiful, sitting his voice right where it needs to be.” Otherwise, while there are lots of new mics that tend to be expensive and perhaps not necessarily road worthy, he professes to be of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thinking, forsaking “esoteric” mics for the tried-and-true.
It’s all designed to suit the audience.
“I don’t run shows stupid loud,” Page says. “I’m a firm believer in that you study the audience as they come in, size up the fan base and give them what they expect. This audience does not expect to get their heads blown off, so we don’t. We go from the quiet songs to the big ones with full-on brass, but we keep it in boundaries. That way they walk out having a great concert experience. It’s the art and science of giving the audience exactly what they want.”
Gear and Crew
Sound Company: Clair Global
Main P.A.: 32 Clair i-5’s (in L/R hangs of 16 each)
Subs: 32 Clair i-5b’s (in L/R hangs of 16 each)
Side Hangs: 32 Clair i-3’s (in L/R hangs of 16 each)
FOH Engineers: Michael “Coach” Conner (Simon); Howard Page (Sting)
FOH Consoles: DiGiCo SD7; Studer Vista 5SR
Monitors: Bob Lewis (Simon); Pete Buess (Sting)
Monitor console: DiGiCo SD10
Audio Support Crew: Rachel Atkins, Donovan Friedman, Kurt Kasinoff, Thomas Morris, Bob Rice
