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22
FOH Interview
What about drums?
Well, we do individual cymbal miking, so
there are six total inputs for that. There is a
ride and five overheads. Now because they
are so spread out we wanted to do close
miking with Tommy because of the extreme
volume of the drum monitor. Snare top is
an AT5400, snare bottom is an AT4050 and
there’s an AT 2500 in the kick drum. There is
a gong drum that has an AT2500 underneath
and then the toms are double mics. I have
ATM25s on top and on bottom of each tom
and that gives them a great deal of depth.
So, what do you have as far as total inputs?
I haven’t counted really. Let's see…
we've got, well, the 2500s or 2 inputs of
It’s almost like an undisciplined mix —
everything overlaps. This is not a case of
neatly placing bandwidth like your guitar
has this range and vocal has this range.
— Andy Meyer
kick, that’s four, snare top five, snare bottom
six, hat seven, then there are 9 tom input’s,
overheads, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, cowbell 23,
perc trigger-24, 808-25. All right, so there
are 25 inputs there.
Have you ever tried the 2500 on guitar?
Oh, yeah. That’s what I used on Justin’s
tour on the guitars. I did a 2500 on each
NOVEMBER 2008 www.fohonline.com
guy, no EQ, just turned it up, which worked
out fabulously.
Yeah, turn it on and go. How do you have
to deal with this kind of low end?
Well, if the downbeat with the pyro concussion
is exact, which doesn’t happen often,
it can cause damage. We were blowing
up 18s earlier in the tour and not being able
to figure out why and… I knew the concussion
was moving the mix a bit. You know,
I was watching some of the inputs hitting
pretty hard, but I was listening back to a
show a few days ago when one of those hits
happened, and man I will tell you what, it
moved the drivers in my headphones, it hit
perfectly on the downbeat — everything
aligned, which is hard to do man.
So, what are we missing?
We are using new Powersoft digital amplifiers
on the sub-bass.
This is the first tour I have heard them
on.
They are a single-space amplifier that
produces 7,700 watts at 2 ohms per channel
with built-in DSP. It’s a very powerful
amplifier.
Oh, so does that cut down four or five
racks?
Oh, it cut down a couple of amp racks,
yeah. Because we’ve got three in one rack
and four in another — that’s four spaces
and three spaces, that would have been
two full amp racks.
We were talking about stage volume.
What the hell are the side fills that were
flying?
Oh, those are prism blue boxes. They
are all prism boxes. So, there are four a side
in the air and a sub on the ground and we
don’t always do that. In sheds, it is just one
sub and two tops on the ground. The reason
is the sight-line issue because of the
arena show, so we flew them up in the air
and you need more when they go up in the
air really.
I have seen so many more people over
the years going in-ear that I am not seeing
the kind of stage volumes I used to.
Well, you know what? That would be
great. You know these guys have just done
it so long and it is natural. It is so natural to
them, I guess, to have that kind of wall surrounding
them and it works.
Have you been on the Venue system for
a while?
Well, I tried the Yamaha for a while,
the PM5D. My trick other than the Big Ben
Word Clock on it was the Waves slot card for
the console. So, I put a Waves card in and
I came ADAT Optical out into an Apogee
mini-DAC, which is a D/A converter and so
it basically bypasses the whole deal. It goes
optical right out into the Apogee and the
Apogee did my conversion, my D/A, plus
the Wave slot card also has an L1+ ultramaximizer,
I put right on the main mix. It
was pretty rocking actually. That console
sounded pretty damn good like that. The
Venue, however, is a much better sounding
console right out of the gate, and the
snapshot automation is amazing. It is my
console of choice.
With the stage so loud, what is the best
way you work with the monitor mixer?
It’s imperative that you have a good relationship
and you are on the same page with
everything. We are getting through it and making
it happen. Every little thing that changes
on the deck sonically alters what I get.
It’s all about making it work no matter
what.
Exactly, results only. That’s the game,
man. Get a great result.