Transmitting The Detail: Catching Up With The Sound Team For Kacey Musgraves On Tour

Diving In

There wasn’t a rehearsal prior to the first time Bing mixed Musgraves, just a half-hour sound check for a show on which Musgraves was the opener. “The console was a DiGiCo SD9,” he details, “and I brought a Waves server because I knew I could build fast in that in addition to a DiGiGrid MGB audio interface to record the show. Every free minute I had for the next couple of days, I’d dial up the multitrack mix on headphones and try to make it a bit better.”

Since then he’s continued to streamline his approach in terms of plugins. “At one point I didn’t think they were making her vocal sound any better, so I took off all the plugins and started from scratch. Now it’s just a Waves F6 for EQ and a bit of de-essing as well as a C6 compressor to sculpt the stress points in the vocal.

“I also use a Waves SSL bus compressor for some parallel group compression and blend it in to pick up some extra nuances in her vocal,” he continues. “The crowds are singing the songs a lot louder than before, so I have to mix the show a bit louder, but Kacey’s vocal sets the threshold of where the rest of the band mix will sit for the night. My general approach, when possible, is to attack any sound issues right at the source, with the musicians and their instruments on stage.”

He’s since switched to a DiGiCo SD10 console with a Waves Extreme Server running Waves 10, a Lake LM44 processor and the DiGiGrid MGB with Tracks Live, adding that there could be some additional changes down the line: “With Kacey, I think I’d go toward an outboard reverb like a TC Electronic Reverb 6000, but right now the SD10 is working, Waves is working, and the mix is dialed in, so we’ll keep grooving on this for a bit.”

Speaking The Language

Monitor engineer Dalton VanVolkenburgh is also mixing on an SD10 that’s joined by a Soundcraft Realtime rack and UAD (Universal Audio) plugin processor. Being a musician as well as an engineer helps him to better understand what the band members want.

“It makes it easier because you can speak the language,” he says, adding that Musgraves’ band members have very specific requirements. “And rightly so. They’re very talented and they know what the process should be to make something sound better.” That, in turn, presents a welcome challenge: “Taking the next step from, ‘this sounds great’ to ‘what can we do to make it sound even better?’”

Over 18 months with Musgraves, he’s made some changes in the signal path, primarily for lead vocals. Previously, Musgraves received mixes via both JH Audio 13V2 Pro in-ear monitors (IEMs) as well as stage monitors. “She wants it to be very punchy and bold. It sounded good but she would still put her hand in front of her face and say, ‘I want it to sound like it’s right here.’”

Audio tech David Lim (left) and monitor engineer Dalton VanVolkenburgh working together stageside. (Credit: Steve Jennings)

Specifically, he’s swapped out some microphones and moved Musgraves solely to IEMs. “I’ve also got an Avalon VT -737SP preamp, which helps, and I use a bunch of UAD plugins and hit those pretty hard, but she does sing softly, so I have to gain it up quite a bit – the UAD SSL channel strip helps,” he explains, adding that a Neve Portico 5045 primary source enhancer is also helpful in reducing stage and crowd noise, enabling keeping the mic gain high.

Currently the vocal is captured with a Shure BETA 58 dynamic mic capsule on an Axient wireless system, which VanVolkenburgh says provides the necessary level and clarity. Wireless for the rest of the band is handled with Shure UHF-R wireless systems and PSM 1000 personal monitoring systems.

Musgraves has also taken her own steps to help keep the vocal clean by re-positioning the band members on stage so the sound sources most likely to bleed into her mix – drums and pedal steel – are far upstage left and right, respectively, with two keyboard rigs on a riser between them. Beyond benefiting her mix, Bing says, “It’s a really cool look.”