“For mics we’re using a lot of Shure Beta 58’s. If we have something and Paul O’Neil wants to do something else, if he wants to change something, we change it. The whole thing with the 58 is, in the back of Paul’s mind, the 58 was the premier standard rock mic and he’s all about trying to recreate this old school vibe.”
Luna has programmed the D5 with 25 snapshots for 31 songs. “If I don’t have to change anything, I might leave that snapshots in for another song,” he explains. He changes mixes for different artists between songs. “The five primary vocalists all share one vocal mix. If I have secondary vocalists, they would share a second mix. If I need another vocal pack, another discrete mix, I can use a guest mix.”
For programming wireless frequencies, naturally handling 40 channels is a chore. Luna uses a VWS Inter Modular Analysis, which he states is, “The best tool out there right now. They’ve had it out on the market for two years. I’ve got almost 200 shows under my belt running it, and it’s about 99.5 percent accurate. I’m not doing small calculations either, I’m doing 40 channel calculations.
“I’m coordinating all the frequencies for the show – stage left guitar world, stage right guitar world, my vocal microphones and my in-ears. It comes out to 34 frequencies, product ranges and frequency ranges.”
Luna uses a variety of products on different frequency ranges, including Audio-Technica UFHD, Sennheiser 300G2, and Shure ULX. With the VWS program, Luna can tell the program which products he’s using and how many frequencies are required. He builds a column listing all the frequencies he requires for the show, and the program calculates what frequencies are available, making sure to avoid television frequencies.
“In different cities where there’s different television density, like Miami, Chicago and New York, there is both analog and digital television on the air.” Luna points out, “They’re broadcasting for a Spanish population and broadcasting south to Cuba and South America, from Miami. It’s the densest TV area right now. The frequency coordination in that area was about 110 million frequencies. I had to watch out for it in the bandwidth I was using.
“How do you figure that stuff out without a computer? How would you know where to begin? You could use the auto tune feature but this is so robust and bullet proof, you could go into any situation in any city – you don’t have to have a tuner. You just run it through this program and it does all the work for you. It saved my life… 40 frequencies a day, for 70 shows.”
Two Shows In 70 Days
Three years ago, due to poplar demand, TSO started doing back-to-back matinee days with 16 trucks. In 2008, each company did it 26 times in 70 days – now that’s what you can consider serious touring.
Wittman sums up this year’s tour with high praise for Clair. “All the tours I’ve done this past year have been with Clair,” he states. “Each one with a different crew of course. No matter who worked with us, they were all top-notch. Bobby Taylor, my assistant, and fly-guys Ken McDowell and Erik Swanson joined the tour as first-timers. They all did an excellent job! I’m very impressed with the depth of knowledge of the Clair employees.”
With children dancing in the aisles, 80-year-old grandparents, hippies and heavy metal lovers in the house, the mix was impressive and never over the top. The Clair system was outstanding. As was Wittman’s ability to satisfy the masses, sounding just like the TSO CDs he has previously engineered.
Check out our PSW Photo Gallery of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra system and crew.
TSO East Audio Production Crew
Front of House Engineer: Dave Wittman
System Engineer: Michihiro Tanakwa
Monitor Engineer: Tony Luna
Monitor Tech: Robert Taylor
Fly: Ken McDowell
Fly: Erik Swanson
TSO West Audio Production Crew
Front of House Engineer: Kurt Vanderhoof
System Engineer: Tom Carlson
Monitor Engineer: Chris Hoffman
Monitor Tech: Tommy Gragg
Fly: Ricardo Avila
Fly: Rick Roman
Nort Johnson is an entertainment production and management professional who has been working in the music industry for 30-plus years. He has supplied tour management, production management, FOH and monitor duties for some the more prominent entertainers of the last three decades.