| Stanley R. Miller:
"We are creatures of habit, it's very cut and dried," Stan Miller commented, talking about the production team and musicians that he travels with. He and I were walking around the drafty cavern that the Los Angeles Forum is in the hours before a crowd arrives to fill it for a concert. That evening's show would be by a fellow named Neil Diamond, who Stan has been mixing for 35 years. A few hours before his client hit the stage, Stan pointed at a chair behind his Yamaha PM1-D console. "This is where I sit," he said, smiling. I smiled back and nodded, and kept looking up at the arcs of JBL VerTec cabinets. Man, those ones near the bottom are pointing almost straight down! How does he keep them from resonating with the mics on stage? Stan spoke again. "This is my chair." I nodded again distractedly, yeah, kind of a nice chair, retro, spacy looking, but what about this PM1-D? How does somebody ever get used to not being able to grab physical EQ knobs or aux sends on every channel? I stared at it like a caveman looking at a sports car. Finally
Stan saw I was missing the point. "I've been sitting in this chair for 25
years!" Finally I woke up. He means this very chair! I knew he had been mixing
Neil Diamond that long but this chair survived a quarter century on the road?
It actually has, thanks to its own road case and a few repairs along the way.
Previously, before the advent of the VerTec boxes, Neil Diamond had performed about 400 shows on a Concert Series system that the artist actually bought and kept in a warehouse. "You're a tycoon!" I kidded Stan. "No, I'm just crazy," he replied. Luckily, Neil Diamond respects Stan's craziness, and that is why they are running an all-digital rig for the latest tour. "It isn't converted into analog until it hits the amps," Stan explained. In fact, he plans to someday run the show from his laptop, controlling the engine of the PM1-D that way, and dispensing with the control surface (what looks like a traditional console, but carries no audio per se.) "I like to push the envelope, that's my thing," Stan continued, as we sat in catering and talked more over a quick meal. "I was one of the first people to hang a system, to use a multicore snake, or take subwoofers on the road. I'm one of the first to put monitors in front of people - I created that monster!" I have been wondering for many years who to blame for that, all the nights I have grappled with demented demands from exhausted and intoxicated artists - and now I can say that I actually met the culprit, and his name is Stan Miller. To say that Stan is happy with the VerTec system would be an understatement. "Hands-down, the best thing we've ever had in here," he said, speaking as someone who has mixed many, many nights at the Forum with Neil Diamond over the years. He added that as they go from hall to hall, the VerTec cabinets are "more consistent than anything we have ever had." At the monitor position sat another PM1-D, manned by Bernie Becker, who is also the studio engineer for Neil Diamond's albums. Bernie's desk is first in a digital chain, so that his gain changes actually flow downstream to Stan's desk at FOH. I described this to some mixer friends who were horrified, but I said "No, think about it. Imagine having an attentive, fully qualified person behaving like a human compressor, so that when somebody on stage starts to red-line, he brings them down a notch, and it never reaches you!"
Bernie and Stan receive digital stereo inputs from the stage by virtue of numerous Yamaha O1V digital mixers, that are placed next to individual musicians. The musician then sends his own guitars or keyboards to the system from the stereo outputs of their 01V, while simultaneously receiving a set of submixed stems from Bernie's monitor desk, to mix their own in-ear monitors. Wedges that I saw around the stage were there only for backup. Watching the show that night, I listened as Stan brought the different sections in and out of the mix from song to song, working with the palette that a large band provides. Sometimes the strings would be accentuated, on other songs the background vocalists or the percussionist.
I was surprised to hear that Neil Diamond continues to show up for soundcheck every day. It seems the man is more committed to good audio than most arena performers. As Stan puts it, "What's interesting is that he's a very creative guy. He also entrusts things to people and leaves them alone and doesn't tell them how to do their jobs." Raise your hand if you would like to find an artist who would do that! It seems that such a deal must be based on how meticulous a job Stan Miller has done over time, for Neil Diamond.
Diamond Coverage Host Page |
