MANCHESTER, UK - November 2025 - Announced two days before the 30th anniversary of Oasis' debut album, Definitely Maybe, the Oasis Live '25 tour marks the band's first live appearances since they acrimoniously split in 2009. The trek, which has crossed the UK, North and South America, Australia, and Asia, was so highly anticipated that it had the serendipitous and unexpected outcome of prompting six of Oasis' previous LP releases to re-enter the UK charts, one of which even made it back into the top ten.Steve Weall mixes monitors for Noel and half of the band while his colleague, Bertie Hunter, mixes monitors for Liam and the rest of the band, but the split monitor desks are not the result of any brotherly animus. That's not unusual at the very pinnacle level of stadium touring, says Weall, who also does monitors for Noel's solo project, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds'. When you've got the wherewithal to do it, it's quite nice to have someone who's just there for you.
It's also quite nice to have the absolute pinnacle of monitor-mixing technology on hand, as well. The tour's pair of DiGiCo Quantum852 consoles and other gear, including Quantum338 and Quantum326 desks used by some of the support acts on the tour, were supplied by Midlands, UK-based Urban Audio Productions Ltd, whose technical director, Dan Lewis, is also one of Oasis' front-of-house engineers. Urban Audio also supplied a Fourier Audio transform.engine that is being used by Weall.
We have a separate console each, and they are side-by-side next to each other, very close, very sociable, Weall laughs. And despite obviously having a significant budget, the floor space is not infinite, so we also have a shared SD-Rack setup: two main SD-Racks that take all the inputs and the majority of the outputs that we share between two consoles, and we additionally share a master Shure RF rig for the in-ear monitors. I also have another local SD-Rack, and Bertie has a local SD-MiNi Rack, and then we have another SD11 mixer running some shouts, talkbacks, matrixing and other elements, all on a large Optocore network. He puts the channel count at approximately 140 inputs and 100 outputs between the two desks, including outboard processing.
However, both monitor operations are very independent of each other, Hunter emphasises, intended to give each Gallagher their own monitor universe. At the same time, he adds, We both have to kind of work together. We both have to decide on the gain structure of every channel. It's been a lot easier because we've been working quite closely together physically, as opposed to being in our own little worlds, which we could have been if we had separate SD-Racks. We can also take input from elsewhere. For instance, I take some effects stems and things like delays, slap delays on Liam's voice, and sort of one-off catching words from Sam Parker, who is mixing Liam's vocal and effects out front, just to kind of keep it all locked in. The DiGiCo infrastructure gives us the options, and we chose what works best for this situation.
Both Weall and Hunter are DiGiCo fans, but Weall points out that the Quantum852 consoles were newly purchased by Urban Audio for the tour. The presence of a third LED screen and a redundant engine made all the difference, he says. In case of an emergency - one that has yet to happen, he quips.
The flexibility of the Quantum852 comes into play in a big way with Oasis. Hunter points out that, unlike his brother, Noel, who uses IEMs every night, Liam prefers floor wedges but will also use IEMs on occasion. So I kind of split the desk up; I have Liam on one end, and I have the band in-ears on the other, with a central bank with my graphic EQs and outputs, he explains. There really isn't another desk that could be laid out that easily and where I can pretty much grab anything, anywhere I need to be, whether it's an in-ear mix or Liam's wedge, and get it into the right balance and tone. And the amount of faders is definitely useful. If I was to have to start flipping through layers, that's not where you want to be on a show of this size. And with the 852, I don't even have to think about it.
When it comes to processing, Hunter says he uses the Spice Rack's Chilli 6 six-band dynamic multiband compressor/expander module often, especially on vocals. It's really handy, he says. I used to have to have that as a plugin, so now it's nice to have it on the desk. I'm also running a couple of Midas XL42 preamps for Liam's vocal, to give it that sound of old' Oasis that he likes, so his vocal will go straight into a Midas preamp. Then I've got some Distressors in my rack and I've got a couple of Kush Audio EQs and a couple of Bricasti M7 reverbs.
Weall estimates he's working with 24 stereo channels of effects returns, So it does start to fill up the console quite easily. But the thing is that the central screen can be fully usable as a home screen, with inputs, outputs and overview, which is very handy. Much of his processing is outboard, including Neve 5045 primary source enhancers on the vocal chain, Summit DCL-200 compressor/limiters, a Bricasti M7 reverb, and Neve master bus processors. These he's able to manage easily through the console's aux sends and inserts, applying them directly to the IEM outputs. We have the flexibility to send anything we want pretty much anywhere, he says. For a big, complex show like this, you need flexibility and management, and the Quantum852 desks have tons of that.
While not being a heavy plugin user when mixing monitors, Weall adds that there are a few metering and measurement tools I find extremely useful to have at my disposal to help me deliver the best and most consistent IEM mixes, he says.
