Eclectic Tastes
Monitor Beach on the tour was a place where engineer Rolland Ryan pitched his virtual umbrella in the virtual sand and gave command to a combination of wedges and Sennheiser G3 in-ear devices onstage.
Using an Avid VENUE Profile that better accommodated the slimmer space allotted to his efforts, Ryan managed the needs of eclectic tastes: while guitarist Danny Kortchmar listened only to wedges, Taylor used an IEM in his left ear and a floor wedge on his right, King the same only opposite.
Pre-tour experimentation led to the choice of an SR40V cardioid condenser from Earthworks as James Taylor’s vocal mic.
With characteristics that are just exactly what Taylor asks for in his ears and wedges, the crew knew it would be a winner even before he sang into it.
“It sounds just like you think James Taylor’s vocal sounds,” Morgan explains. “Selecting it was a given.”
It was felt that Carole King’s piano-playing preference of keeping her floor monitor up close on a milk crate warranted the use of a quality dynamic microphone for vocals, and to that end a Telefunken M80 was employed based upon its high fidelity and rejection qualities.
Her piano – a Yamaha C7 – was mic’ed with an Earthworks PM40, an AMT M40, and Barcus-Berry 4000XL piano pickups.
Morgan, who has spent a lifetime seeking the sound man’s Holy Grail of being able to mic a piano with the lid closed while still having it provide the full-body sound of playing with the lid open, believes that on this tour the cherished prize is finally in hand.
Largely responsible for the feat in Morgan’s estimation, the Earthworks PM40 mounts a pair of omni elements on a carbon graphite rod, offering adjustability for any size piano.
“Setting up the mic capsules on the PM40 is just a matter of common sense,” he points out. “If you want more attack, you get closer to the hammers.
If you want more body, you get further away from the hammers. If you’re seeking a harder stereo split, slide the mics further apart. It’s a brilliant solution.
The way these mics and the electronics are tuned has truly created an open lid piano with the lid closed.”