Rapper Future’s One Big Party tour was originally slated to run a month, but those sold-out weekend shows went so well they decided to take the party on a second leg, an 11-city tour in March. And the tour was notable in two respects; the first being it featured an Outline GTO line array system. This is a rare sight indeed as only Spider Ranch, who supported this tour, and Winston-Salem area-based Special Event Services, currently carry the line.
The second aspect to Future’s successful tour was that it was in fact a party: He shared the stage with other artists — sometimes up to six guests on a single show. Often the audio team didn’t know who was going to show up on the stage at any point. “We did wing it, but it always went well,” says system tech/crew chief Travis Strain.
“With great support from my tech and monitor engineer, we had the system dialed and ready for whatever came our way,” says Future’s FOH engineer Freddie Johns III. “It was a team effort.” As for all those guest artists, John quips: “I feel like we mixed the whole industry!”
Future, a prolific artist considered a pioneer of modern trap music, took the crowd on a ride with material spanning from his early mix-taped material to his recently released album. Houston native Don Toliver was the main opening act for the second leg of the tour, and he was mixed by James Butera. Strain mixed the other two to three opening acts.
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Johns, who grew up in Los Angeles, was first exposed to audio working on his high school stage crew. Fortunately for him, the school had a state-of-the-art theater-style auditorium and was able to pay the kids on crew to run it. Later, he was a member of the Faithful Central Bible Church, where he worked with John Wilks, who led the audio department there and mentored Johns. “John gave me my foundation and saw something in me before I realized what I had,” Johns says. The church would acquire the LA Forum in 2000, and that allowed him to get arena experience working audio for the occasional church services that were held there. After that, he went to work for the Hollywood-based production house, Studio 116. There, he further sharpened his audio chops and met another key person: lighting designer Ryan Nash. “He noticed my work ethic and told me I need to be on the road,” he says with a laugh. “Sure enough, he later called me asking if I wanted to do a weekend with rapper B.o.B. as monitor engineer.”
The weekend must have gone well, because he went on to work with B.o.B. for four years. He then met tour/production manager Tone Lopez who found him work with a host of artists, greatly adding to his resume. “Like John Wilks, Tone also played a big part in my journey.” Johns “dibble and dabbled” at FOH for six years while working the monitor desk when G-Eazy gave him his first FOH opportunity mixing a tour in large rooms. Then came the successful “Endless Summer Tour 2018” where he mixed in all the big amphitheaters. He’s focused solely on FOH ever since.
It all led to this Future tour, which is John’s first with him. “It went great,” he says of the tour. “Management was happy, everyone was happy.” The tour continually sold out arenas from Brooklyn NY to Oakland CA. On this tour, he was supplied with a DiGiCo SD10 desk. The board offers almost everything he needs, though he supplements it with Universal Audio’s Avalon VT-737 plug-in for Future’s vocals. There’s also a Rupert Neve Designs Portico II Master Buss Processor as outboard on his main bus out and a Waves Super Rack. A Shure Axient system was employed with the five AD2s/B58s ready for guests. Future was on a Sennheiser SK 9000.
Johns says most of the time, he didn’t know who was coming out on stage, but that didn’t impede him. “I have been doing this for a while, and I knew as long as I had the mics ready for anything, we’d be good.”
The set included a catwalk in the shape of a “V” that allowed the vocalists to walk out and be closer to the audience — and in front of the P.A. speakers. Sometimes he had to manage up to four voices out front. “Between the system tuning and the Waves PSE, I was able to have all four vocals sitting in the mix with no issue being in front of the P.A.,” Johns says. “Monitor engineer Andre Williams and I paired really well together, and we just compared mic levels and rung them all out before the show.” Future and Don Tolliver were on Shure PSM1000 IEMs with Adamson M15 wedges for backup and for the guest artists.
The Crew
“We were brought in on the Future tour by Detroit-based Atkins Event Productions,” says Spider Ranch’s Alex Moran. “They were handling the lighting and video and brought us in to do the audio.” Spider Ranch first got the Outline rig in 2015, and while it’s fairly prevalent in Europe, it’s not as well-known in the states. “SES has about 140 total boxes and we have about 130. But this is our main P.A. and we’ve had good luck with it. The deployment going up and down is fast. And unlike a lot of line arrays, there’s a lot of cone surface so the guitars sound amazing. The tone overall is amazing, and it goes extremely low.” So low that once, an artist complimented him about how great the subs are and Moran had to tell him, “the subs aren’t on!” He says the throw is remarkable too. “We did a demo of it in Spokane for a Cheap Trick outdoor show, and we clocked it hitting 110 dB 150 feet out. Then when we went out at 240 feet, it was only down to 108 db. And that’s why we purchased the system.”
Moran says that the Future shows proved once again that it’s no novelty. And he was especially glad that Spider Ranch was part of this tour. “The crew we sent out was quite good.”
That crew was headed by Strain, who first met Moran in 2012 when he was managing another audio company in the Bay Area when Spider Ranch was based there (today, it’s based 90 miles northeast in Sacramento). Soon Strain was freelancing for Moran occasionally. Then in 2019, Strain came on full-time, primarily as a system tech and/or FOH engineer. He too, is impressed with the Outline system. “It’s very clear without being sterile,” Strain says. “There’s less ‘color’ than other line arrays and that gives you more options. The vocal clarity on it is unreal.” He notes that when other engineers bring in their files used on other P.A.s, the first thing they do is back the vocal range a bit. “And the mid-range goes on for days.”
Strain says Future’s team first heard the system at a Lil’ Baby show, who he had previously been FOH for, so he knew the management. “Then had originally spec’d another P.A., but then came to the Atlanta show and said, ‘oh hey, we want this.’” It especially works well in arena shows, and the two different settings offer options for any situation. With this Future tour, they had 78 speakers in the air and 21 on the ground. The show was typically played in a 270-degree configuration. “We went in with six hangs of audio main, plus flown side fills.”
According to Strain, FOH engineer Johns “was a little skeptical” about the Outline system that management had decided to go with, but “at the end of the tour he was pretty stoked on it.”
Johns confirms: “It was my first time mixing on the GTO rig, and I didn’t know what to expect. I reached out to a couple fellow engineer friends that have mixed on it and got their input. The top boxes get loud, and the throws go low. The floor sub was moving air, I must say. It got the job done.”
Future’s One Big Party Tour
AUDIO CREW
- Future FOH: Freddie Johns III
- Don Toliver FOH: James Butera
- System Engineer/FOH Tech: Travis Strain
- Monitor Tech/Monitor Engineer: Andre Williams
- System Tech: Duane Klose
- P.A. Techs: Jesse Tarver, Evan Alexander
P.A. GEAR
- Main Hangs/side: (15) Outline GTO, (3) Outline C12
- Out Hangs/side: (9) Outline GTO, (3) Outline C12
- 270 Hangs/side: (9) JBL VTX V20
- Subs: (21) RMS Acoustics M218
- Amplifiers: Powersoft X8
FOH GEAR
- FOH Console: DiGiCo SD10
- Outboard: Rupert Neve Designs 5088 Portico II Master Buss Processor; Waves SuperRack
- System Processing: (2) Lake LM26; Powersoft Armonia
MON GEAR
- Monitor Console: DiGiCo Quantum7 with Rack
- IEM Hardware: Shure PSM1000
- Wedges: Adamson M15
- Stage Subs: RMS Acoustics M218
- Sidefills/side: (5) JBL VTX V20; (2) McCauley M88 subs
- Amplifiers: Powersoft X8
