The latest leg of Lizzo’s The Special Tour, currently taking the pop star across Europe, the UK and North America through summer 2023, is being supported by front-of-house engineer Nick “Gauge” Todd and monitor mixer Rico Gonzales behind Solid State Logic Live L550+ consoles supplied by Solotech.
Gonzales additionally uses an SSL Fusion processor and a THE BUS+ compressor and dynamic EQ, while Todd has also recently added a Fusion at FOH. The two engineers switched to SSL Live desks for the three-month-long first leg of The Special Tour, which got underway in September 2022. The pair made the move to SSL at the suggestion of Gonzales, who has been with Stevie Wonder since 2014, mixing monitors for him during the past six years on an SSL Live console. He has also had years of experience working on SSL 4000 and 9000 Series desks in recording studios around Dallas, Texas.
“My main reason is the sonics,” Gonzales says. “Then, the onboard processing and all the EQ.” He was previously using a variety of outboard hardware but has been eliminating some of it in favor of the SSL Live’s onboard processing. “The dynamics don’t feel ‘hard’ unless you want them to. They’re very, very smooth, very analog feeling. I’ve been using the Blitzer on the bass,” he offers as an example, “and a little bit on kick and snare and the drum bus. Before, I was using an outboard dynamics processor, but I’m trying to see how much I can get away with using on the console, because it makes life easier.”
Todd says he also switched to SSL for the sound quality it provides over the previous brand of desk he employed. “I find myself using less EQ with this console,” says Todd, who has been with Lizzo since 2021 and has also worked with Doja Cat, SZA, H.E.R., Normani, Vince Staples and many others. “Sometimes, things going straight through the desk and the preamps with no EQ sound great on their own.”
Beyond that, Todd continues, “The console does so much. There’s lot of onboard processing — and I use a lot of it. You really don’t need anything else but the desk. And I honestly love the way the faders feel. They give me real nice feedback.”
Gonzales does carry some outboard with his Live console, though, and two pieces are the Fusion and The Bus+. He brought one particular mixing practice that he developed while working with Wonder to Lizzo’s live production, where he generates 10 mixes for the artist, her five-piece band and the production crew from about 72 stage inputs. For Lizzo’s in-ear mix, “I mix off the left/right bus. I learned this from Stevie, because I mix only his ears,” he says. (Wonder’s live production employs a second monitor mixer just for the band.) “I make a band bus — a mix-minus — and I process that with an SSL Fusion and SSL The Bus+, then it goes into a hardware limiter.”
With that processing chain, Gonzales continues, “It keeps everything nice and firm in her ears, like she’s singing to TV tracks. Then, her mic and the audience live on top of that mix. If the drums or anything hit a certain peak that limiter keeps it under control, so everything stays around the same RMS levels.” On the Fusion, he adds, “I’m using just a little spread and color. I’m using the Vintage Drive and the Stereo Image a little bit. That’s all in the chain that’s on just the music bus. It keeps it nice and in your face.”
Todd has also been making use of some of the SSL Live desk’s onboard plugins. “I like The Sourcerer; that’s really cool and something I’ve found myself using a lot,” he says, referring to the primary source isolator plugin, which drastically reduces or even eliminates feedback and microphone bleed. “And the compressor plugin; I love using that on bass.”
