| Brooks and Dunn’s
Neon Circus in Vegas
By Chris Kathman
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I wondered why there were no digital desks,
it seemed like a perfect opportunity to use their recall ability, and trim down
the real estate out front and in the monitor worlds. But, the consensus of the
mixers on this tour was to stay with the analog consoles that they are used to.
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Sound Image downfills
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The arrays of Sound Image composite cabinets included 24 G-5A hi-packs (each
with four 14” drivers, two 1.5” compression drivers and four bullet
tweeters,) six G-5 long-throws, all flown, plus twelve G-5 subwoofers on the ground.
Sound Image 1250 (12”/2”) downfills are powered by QSC Series 3 amps,
while the lows and low-mids of the mains are driven by Powerlite 4.0’s, with
Powerlite 1.8’s on the highs and hi-mids. |
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David Turner
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It was a real pleasure to meet Live Audio Board regular David Turner, who was
there mixing Trick Pony on a Ramsa SX-1. This band features a very active female
lead singer, with two male backing vocals. They lean heavily toward the rock side
of modern country, so David’s challenge is to create an instrumental bed
beneath the singers where, as he said, the drums are “still rockin’”
and the solos are “totally there.” I thought he did a great job meeting
those goals. |
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Tascam
CD and minidisc recorder
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PSW contributor Brian
Belcher was there mixing Gary Allan, also on an SX-1, and showed me his recently
completed personal racks of playback, effects (including a TC Electronics 2290,)
dynamics, such as dbx comps and Drawmer gates, and to top it all off, a dbx Drive
Rack. There was also a Tascam
CC222 combined cassette and CD recorder, which I had not seen before. |
Brian has gone to the Shure KSM27a as the vocal mic for Gary Allan.
It has kind of a retro look, plus the sound is amazing. I was looking away from
the stage when Gary started singing and thought to myself, “That sounds so
much better than any other vocal I have heard so far tonight, why is that?”
Then I turned around and saw the big Shure mic.
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Cletus T. Judd and Chris Kathman
Separated at birth?
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I asked Brian to introduce me to the emcee, Cletus T. Judd, who is country’s
equivalent to Weird Al Yankovic. Cletus makes records satirizing big country singles,
and he came out and sang to track as his videos rolled during each set change.
I have a friend who is a country fan who keeps insisting I looked just like him,
so I wanted to prove to her that it is not true. It isn’t, right? |
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| | Brian
Belcher’s drive/EFX and dynamics racks for Gary Allan |
Living in Nashville, Brian also deals with the Sound Image office
there, headed up by Everett Lybolt. They supplied desks for a wedges
vs. ears monitor shootout that Brian described for PSW last
year, not long after he began working as Gary Allan’s production
manager and FOH mixer. I checked out James Johnson’s Soundcraft
SM20 stage right, where he does monitors for Gary Allan, using the
dbx IEM processor, and I also met Marcus Wade and John Garber, the
other two techs on the tour from Sound Image.
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Sound Image’s John Garber
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Marcus
Wade and Pete McDonough
| It was an unexpected pleasure
to meet Robert Asmus, who was in Vegas to mix ZZ Top, across the Strip, and had
come over to visit the Neon Circus crew. Showco’s ML
Procise was also in town, doing monitors for ZZ Top this time around, after
years of mixing house for the band. Robert and I talked about various speaker
systems, including line arrays, and he pointed out that it is hard to beat trapezoidal
cabinets for forming a rounded hang that addresses people sitting to the sides
of the stage in arenas.
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“The Return of Mister NashVegas!” Brian Belcher
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Line arrays from different manufacturers sure keep sprouting up. I am seeing
that PSW’s Fearless Leader, Ken
Berger, was correct, when I first met him two years ago, and he predicted
this explosion. I had not thought it would be this widespread, this quickly. However,
some sound companies are still expressing reservations about the technique of
supplementing line arrays with other smaller fill cabinets. They just do not want
to be buying different types of boxes, and feel that line arrays are best suited
to theatre type venues. | I asked Tommy Welch if he was
being paid by Sound Image as well as Brooks and Dunn, what we call “double-dipping,”
that a lot of touring engineers do. He laughed and said no, which is why I was
impressed when I saw him helping lid the consoles at the end of the night.
Groups of people like the band engineers and the Sound Image crew on the Brooks
and Dunn tour have been taking sound systems in and out of rodeos, arenas, theatres,
clubs and festivals for many years. They are going to do it just about as smoothly,
safely and rapidly as it can be done.
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