The Korn/Rob Zombie Tour might just be the best-kept secret of the summer. “It’s selling really well,” says Zombie’s FOH engineer Mark Woodcock. “Besides the Guns N’ Roses tour, it’s the #1 rock act of the summer. The reviews have been great — both bands sound great, and the lighting and staging on both shows are spectacular. And it really is two different shows. At first, the way they look together might seem like a bizarre combination, but it totally works.”
Typically, co-headlining tours ping-pong positions, taking turns at the front and back spots show-to-show. Interestingly, Korn could “open” for Zombie for several shows before switching places. On any given night, it’s a bit of a mystery as to who goes first, though Woodcock says at the end of the tour, it’ll be exactly 50/50 as far as who “opens” for whom. Of course, it doesn’t matter to the audio team; the lighting team though, that’s another story… the show I attended in St. Louis held off starting a few minutes for a bit more sun-setting.
Woodcock & Zombie
As a lad in England, Woodcock started working audio in clubs until he jumped the pond to the U.S. and continued working up through the ranks. It had to end in a generous surplus of stories, as he did five years as FOH and production manager for the late great Merle Haggard. He worked with many other bands in various capacities after that, including Cyndi Lauper, Babyface, Ronnie Dunn, and Richie Sambora. Since 2008, he has been with Brit rockers Bush. “I’ve really run the gamut, and have gotten to work with a lot of very different acts,” he says. Throughout his career, he’s worn either the PM or the FOH label, and usually both. He started in 2015 with Zombie as PM, and then when the FOH spot opened up, he took that over as well.
Woodcock and Korn PM/FOH Marko Vujovic had to decide on what P.A. system they would take out and share. “We both agreed on the Adamson system, which is the P.A. I’ve been using lately with my work with Sound Image,” says Woodcock. “To me, it’s the best sounding system out there right now. I first used it at festivals and it was quick and easy to set up.” He used Adamson on different shows and festivals and took it out on Imagine Dragons for a long time on their tour. “It’s loud, but the high-end is so smooth that for a tour like this, you have to add the harshness [that the music calls for]. The subs are incredible too.” The 14 wedges and sidefills on the stage are all Adamson, and as one can imagine, that stage gets pretty damn loud, though the speakers keeps it coming out clean and smooth. While the two engineers are happily sharing the speakers, they do stick to their own preferences on consoles. “We’re completely separated [Vujovic] is on an Avid Profile, and I’m on a Midas Pro X,” says Woodcock.
Vujovic’s first encounter with the Adamson system was at a festival in Spain last year. “I think I was one of the first ones to work on it, and it just blew me away.” He tells that it was so new, and time was so crunched, the system tech came up to him after the show and apologized saying he only had time to do little else but take it out of the box, rely on the preset menu, and hanging it as is. “By the end of the week, I told him, don’t do anything else — keep it just like this!” he laughs.
Zombie’s band is his traditional quartet — vocals, guitar, bass, and drums. Zombie’s vocals are on a Shure Beta 58, and as he has been fond of doing, he has his dry signal going through a phase shifter program. Woodcock has a Palmer DI on guitar, and in a departure from the mostly Shure collection of mics, he has a Heil PR-31BW on the guitar. “I believe in simplicity — the bass is a pre and post with no mic and nothing else,” he says. “The drums are mostly Shure, with a Neumann 191, a couple AKG 414s overhead [of the drums], plus Shure Beta 98s and Beta 56s.” In that “keep it simple” philosophy, he just has some Waves plug-ins and a Soundgrid Server Extreme server. There’s also a TC 2290 Delay and Eventide H3000 Harmonizer at work.
Vujovic & Korn
Vujovic is originally from Serbia, and grew up in household headed by a father who was a drummer, playing in a Beatles cover band. They would move to Berlin, and he would pick up the sticks and sit behind a kit as a young man as well. His band Skillshot played more than 500 concerts across Germany and Austria, and the young player was influenced by several bands, including, prophetically, Korn. Meanwhile, since he was 16, he was pushing the faders of a little Yamaha 8-track recorder. By the time he was 20, he wanted to do more behind the board. “When I saw all these lights, I knew I wanted to mix, and I desperately wanted to get into this business.”
The first touring band he mixed was the punk/hardcore band Beatsteaks from Berlin. Fast forward to 2008 when he got his big break: Korn’s frontman Jonathan Davis was on tour with his solo project, The JDSFA when the FOH engineer got sick. “The promoter of these German rock festivals had recommended me to Jon, and so on a Wednesday in Italy in a small town close to Milan, I mixed my first show for him. Then I got to finish the last ten days of his tour. I think I did the right thing, because in 2009 I got a call to mix for Korn, and I’ve been working with them ever since.” He was thrown into the fire on his first Korn gig though: “My first show was the headliner slot at Rock am Ring festival in 2009. I had no rehearsals, and was given the set list three minutes before the show started. Somehow I survived that and I’m still here!”
In that year, he was given latitude of what board to mix on, and after checking all the options, settled on an Avid Profile. For a digital board, “the workflow felt very much how an analog board feels, and since I initially developed my skills in the studio, it was easy to transition to live mixing with this board.” Most recently he’s adopted the new SL6. “The virtual sound check option got me.” Korn is traveling with its regular five members, plus Zac Baird, “a keyboardist that is kind of a secret weapon sound-wise,” he says. “Most of what he does is support the guitars, and only about a third of what he does is ‘obvious’ keyboard work. He’s making the live sound bigger and deeper like it is in the studio.” He adds that the musicians use no click tracks or computers during the show with the exception of the new single, “Rotting in Vain.”
Mic-wise, for Korn, “it’s all Shure. To be honest, there aren’t many companies who have such a diverse mic [catalog] that they have something for every [application]. You can stick to Shure for everything, and they have a mic for every situation.” The keyboardist Baird and drummer Ray Luzier are on IEMs, but the rest of the band uses the stage wedges. Just like Woodcock, Vujovic relies on plug-ins for anything else he needs to mix the band. “It’s nice because all my plug-ins fit in my bag, and that’s all I carry, and everything else I need is in the Profile.” As much as he likes the Profile, he does lament that not everybody takes care of them. “Some companies don’t service them the right way, especially in clubs,” he says. “From time to time, you have to strip it down and re-install and restore them.” He does carry an extra hard drive in case anything happens to his.
It’s impressive if not daunting that both engineers do both PM and FOH jobs, as they clearly require radically different skill sets. Woodcock says when he takes over the soundboard, “that’s my break of the day — that’s the 75 minutes I don’t have to take a phone call or answer an email!”
All Systems Go
System tech Andrew Dowling first started working sound at church in seventh grade, and worked there and at a PAC through high school. After receiving a bachelor’s of business administration in music business from Belmont University, he ended up at Sound Image where he’s been for nine years. “I have held every job on the audio crew during that time,” he says. “But I have probably spent the most time as a system engineer.” Dowling has a lot of experience with the Adamson E-series, having used their Y Series earlier. “I was one of the beta testers of the E15s back in 2012, and I have used it on multiple tours since. I love the way the box sounds. The system is really quick to respond and the high sounds are so natural. The lows have incredible punch. Adamson builds some of the loudest subs, which I like not just so I can get a ridiculous SPL but so I can use less enclosures to get the volume I need.” He compliments the packaging, saying that from a fly standpoint, the rig is easy to work with, saying that at a mere 176 pounds it’s lighter than most similarly sized boxes.
“Tours always have their challenges,” he says. “Sometimes having to fit two headliner sound checks in is interesting. You also have to be flexible for the changeovers and load out because they alternate spots. This is especially true stage left, where some monitor gear is shared between the headliners.” Monitor engineers are Scott “Skitch” Canady for Zombie and Steve Walsh for Korn.
“I’ve really enjoyed the tour a lot — honestly I think it’s the most fun Rob has had in a long while,” Woodcock says. “You have John 5 up there, and there’s probably not a better guitarist out there right now. It’s a good, fun show to mix every night. It’s loud, but it’s not crushing people, which, with these speakers, we could do — believe me!”
Return Of The Dreads Tour 2016
Audio Crew
- Sound Company: Sound Image
- Rob Zombie FOH Engineer/Prod. Mgr: Mark Woodcock
- Korn FOH Engineer/Prod. Mgr: Marco Vujovic
- Zombie Monitor Engineer: Steve Walsh
- Korn Monitor Engineer: Scott “Skitch” Canady
- Systems Engineer, Crew Chief: Andrew Dowling:
- Monitor Tech/Stage Patch: Tommy Gragg
- P.A. Fly Tech: Luke Nelson
System Gear
- Main P.A.: (12) Adamson E15/side with (2) E12 under
- Aux: (8) Adamson E15/side
- Subs: (12) Adamson E219/side
- Front Fills: Adamson SpekTrix
- Amps: Lab.gruppen PLM20000Q
- System EQ: Lab.gruppen LM44
- Tuning Interface: Metric Halo ULN8; DPA 4007 mic
- Audio Distro: Dante primary/secondary networks; Cisco SG300 switches
FOH Gear (Rob Zombie)
- FOH Console: Midas Pro X
- Outboard: Waves Soundgrid Server Extreme; TC 2290 Delay;
- Eventide H3000 Harmonizer
FOH Gear (Korn)
- FOH Console: Avid Profile
- Outboard: Waves Plugs; SPL Transient Designer
MON Gear (Rob Zombie)
- Monitor Console: Yamaha PM5d
- DAW: Digital Performer Tracks Rig
- Speakers: (14) Adamson M-Series Wedges
- Mics: Shure, Heil, Neumann, AKG
- Wireless Mic: Shure UHF-R with SM58 head
- IEM Hardware: Shure PSM1000 IEMs
MON Gear (Korn)
- Monitor Console: Avid Profile
- Wireless Mic: Shure UHF-R with KSM9 handheld
- Sidefills: JBL VerTec VT4889
- Wedges: Sound Image MA212’s
- Amps: Crown iTech HD12000
