We always seem to learn the most about a show and the people behind it when we get to spend some time just hanging out beforehand. The way a certain trick or piece of gear is described can tell you a lot about the people driving the rig. In the case of Dirk Durham and Earl Neal with Toby Keith, they seem to vacillate between merely pleased and downright giddy as they show this intrepid reporter around the stage. The first thing you will notice are the subs. Lots of them. Everywhere. "During the intro the other night, I had to back 'em down," says Durham. "They were shaking the projectors so much that the image was bouncing around on the screen."
The image he is talking about is the show's video opening set piece, which involves the talent being abducted by aliens and making a break for it in his trickedout Ford truck, the front half of which ends up sticking through the back of the stage as the focus of the set. When the truck gets taken into the spaceship, the subs rumble in a way that is felt more than heard, a vibe that extends to the show and even the monitors.
"Check these out," Dirk says as he leads me beneath the stage and points out several Turbosound 21-inch subs whose energy is not meant for the audience. "Everyone is on personal monitors and there are no amps on stage. The drummer has TWO thumpers and still wanted more low end, so we stuck a sub under his kit. He ended up with two of those and now we have six-two for the drums, two for the bass player and one each for keys and guitar.
"Go hit the kick and check it out." I sat at the drum throne, hit the pedal and almost jumped out of the seat the vibration was so strong. Let's just say that a meal before the show would not be an option if I were on the drum throne…
Back out front, Durham is driving a Midas XL4 and has some very cool compression tricks for keeping the center of the soundstage open for the lead vocal. "I assign all the backing vocals to a VCA for overall control and also to a stereo subgroup that goes to the main left-right outs. There is a custom insert in the subgroup that goes into an ADL 1500 tube comp and everything is panned hard left and right. I also use a couple of Eventide units–a Harmonizer set down about nine cents just to fatten it up and then the largest hall reverb they have with a 2.6-second decay. I just feather that in a little bit to smooth it out." The result is that the backing vox are clear and present, but never clutter up the middle of the soundstage. It is as if, the harder they are hit, the more the get pushed to the sides of the mix leaving the middle wide open for the lead vocal. Dirk uses a similar trick with the horn section.
The other big surprise was the sound of the VerTec rig. Like some others of the sound tribe, I like the medium and small VerTecs, but am not a big fan of the sound of the big boxes, which can be muddy to these ears. At sound check, I asked if they were using the mid-sized boxes and was told that, no, these were the 4888 big boys. I all but called the Harman guy a liar, saying they sounded too good, and he just pointed to the rack of dbx 4800s. In addition to real monitoring of the system and control via the HiQnet system, the 4800s took all the tubbiness out of the 4888s.
The final surprise came at monitor world where Earl Neal wore the multiple hats of monitor engineer, RF wrangler and crew chief. With a show this loud and the talent's red-neck rep, one would not expect golden ears, but Earl says looks can deceive. He is running a DiGiCo D5 for the band and a Midas for Toby. "I tried to save some money and got four XL4 strips for the lead vocal, Toby's guitar and the backing vocals. After the show, I asked him how it sounded, and he said the voice and guitar and the backing vox all sounded great, but he didn't like anything else. He could really hear the difference." The result was two consoles (It helps to be making more money than most small countries.)
Sitting around backstage, hanging on the bus and talking shop at the bar that this is more of a family than a crew. And family sticks together. Like the Gold Bond Powder incident. Well, on second thought, better save that one for another time…
Gear
Console: Midas XL4
Processing: 2 x ADL C/L 1500 Tube Compressors, 2 x Drawmer DL441 Quad Compressors, 3 x Drawmer D6201 Dual Gates, 1 x dbx 160 Compressor, 1 x dbx 162SL Compressor, 1 x Drawmer DL 241 Dual Compressor, 1 x TC Electronic D-Two Digital Delay, 1 x TC Electronic M6000 with ICON Controller, 1 x Eventide H3000 Harmonizer, 2 x Yamaha SPX 1000 Digital Effects, 5 x dbx DriveRack 4800
Cabinets: 72 x JBL VerTec 4889 Line Array, 36 x JBL VerTec 4880 Line Array Subs, 8 x Sound Image CF Series Front Fill Cabinets, 2 x JBL LSR Series Near Field Monitors
Amps: 56 x Crown IT8000, 10 x QSC Powerlite 9.0, 2 x QSC Powerlite 6.0
Consoles: 1 x Midas XL3, 1 x DiGiCo D5 DX56
Effects: 4 x dbx 160SL Compressors, 2 x BSS DPR 404 Quad Compressors, 3 x Yamaha SPX 2000, 3 x dbx 376 Tube Channel Strips w/ digital out, 1 x DBX IEM In-Ear-Monitor processor
Personal Monitors: 1 x Shure PSM 700 H3, 7 x Shure PSM 700 HF, 5 x Shure PSM 600 HA, HB, HC, HD, HE, 3 x Shure PSM HW Hardwires
Stage Subs: 6 x Turbosound Flashlight 21" Subs, 8 x Crown IT8000 Digital Amplifiers
