On the Digital Edge

Last month, I wrote about working with James Taylor at a one-off outdoor event in Greenwich, CT. At this show, I was able to use my normal Avid VENUE console system with existing show files modified for this particular event. The PA system, the monitor system and the microphone complement were not our accustomed touring gear, but being able to initiate our work from a familiar console platform with saved individual song snapshots gave both me and monitor engineer Dave Staub an advantageous starting point. The Greenwich show and the two subsequent one-off shows in this short run went extremely well.

I’m on a plane heading back east to work three one-off events with James Taylor. The first is a music festival in Greenwich, CT. James will be the headline act following a full day of entertainment on the main stage. Mr. Taylor will be performing with the full band and singers. The second event is a benefit concert in Newtown, CT. The musicians comprising this performance will be as follows: James on guitar, Larry Goldings on piano/keyboards, Owen Young on cello, Andrea Zonn on violin/vocals and vocalist Kate Markowitz. The third concert will be a multi-performer event at Boston’s TD Garden benefitting Boston Strong. In addition to appearing with the full band and singers, Mr. Taylor will share the stage with Carole King and Jimmy Buffet. Two members of Mr. Buffet’s entourage will also be sitting in during James’ segment of the performance.

Last month, I wrote about the role played by using near-field studio monitors during band rehearsals. This month I will concentrate on show applications for these small but very useful speaker systems. During rehearsals, I ran these speakers off the console’s monitor bus as one would in a studio. Once we are out on the road and working, I use a different output configuration to drive the near-fields. Because I don’t want the output signal interrupted whenever I PFL an input channel or AFL a VCA group or output bus, I put the near-fields on their own stereo matrix output, instead of using the console’s Monitor Out. The monitor function is reserved solely for headphones.

Working as a front of house engineer for high profile performers, large-scale loudspeaker arrays are my stock-in-trade. So, why do I have those small speakers sitting on my meter bridge? Good question. Let’s start at the beginning — back in pre-production, when I am attending band rehearsals and creating the product that will eventually emerge from the components in those large arrays.

In recent years, most of my work is performed at seated shows rather than at large outdoor or indoor events with festival seating. At seated events, promoters want to sell as many unobstructed view floor seats as possible to maximize the dollar return from each show. And with live performance becoming the most popular (and lucrative) sector of the music business, the motivation for optimum financial return has reduced the amount of space allotted to FOH mix positions. It’s also driven productions to mandate lower shipping costs and fuel expenses. This has resulted in the ascendancy of smaller, lighter digital mixing systems over the larger and heavier analog consoles (and outboard racks) on a majority of tours.

The 12-hour time difference between Moscow and Los Angeles definitely caused gaps in communication. Upon hearing the news that the Avid VENUE Profile consoles were unavailable, monitor mixer Brian Hendry and I cobbled together a modified equipment spec for the rehearsal day in Moscow. Both of us decided to go with small analog consoles, as neither of us would have time to program an unfamiliar digital desk. However, when we arrived at work for the last day of rehearsal in Los Angeles, we were greeted with the news that the Avid consoles were now going to be in place on the Moscow rehearsal day. The upward trend was definitely continuing.

How far would you go to work a show with one of your favorite artists? When I was first contacted about traveling to Moscow to participate in a performance with Cher, my internalized answer was, “Really?” but my externalized answer was, “Oh yeah!”

Holiday Gift Ideas for Sound People

Hopefully we have all survived the annual gastronomical excess known as Thanksgiving, so it’s time to start working on that holiday gift list. If there’s an audio engineer lurking on your list, maybe it’s time to break away from the clichéd multi-tool that always seems to appear under the tree. How many Leathermans or Gerbers does one really need? Plus, one always runs the risk of losing these tools to a lapse of memory that results in sheepishly handing the tool to that smug TSA person who noticed that you hadn’t removed it from your carry-on.

After a hiatus that began in February 2011, work has returned me to Las Vegas and the 4,082-seat Colosseum Theater at Caesars Palace, where I spent the better part of three years mixing FOH for Cher and Bette Midler. This past month, rehearsals for Shania Twain’s new Still The One show commenced at Solotech in Las Vegas. Ten musicians and three singers will be joining Shania onstage, and sheer numbers are making things very cozy right now in the 45-by-50-foot rehearsal room we now occupy. The Solotech staff has been incredibly helpful and accommodating while our entourage has nearly overrun their facility. This is a fantastic conglomeration of musicians and vocalists, and many of Shania’s amazing songs already sound show-ready after less than two weeks of work.

At the end of last month’s column, Five For Fighting’s John Ondrasik and I had been saved from a stranding in Minneapolis by a quick thinking, fast-talking travel agent who somehow resurrected our accidentally-canceled reservations from the digital trash can at Delta Airlines. A routine, uneventful flight home to LAX on the following day was exactly what we needed after the stresses caused by the previous day’s travel panic.

Since I made the choice to migrate from analog consoles to a digital platform, something that’s become increasingly clear to me is the requirement to be even more selective and judicious in my microphone choices. I believe it’s reasonable to conclude that the process of digital conversion after the mic preamp is maximized when the processor engine is provided with the highest possible degree of useful detail from the transducer. In the last six years, I have been adding more and more precision high-end condenser, ribbon and dynamic microphones to the James Taylor show’s input list.