Adlib in the Wildness with Snow Patrol

Adlib in the Wildness with Snow Patrol posted: 05/03/2019

Snow Patrol live

Northern Irish rockers Snow Patrol were back on the road after a 7-year break, reaching out to fans with their new 2018 album Wildness and a sold-out UK arena tour, getting their enthusiasm and talent for delivering dynamic and exciting live shows right on point, reconnecting with long term fans and dazzling new ones with the energy and magic of their music.

Adlib was delighted to be the audio provider, working with two highly talented engineers, Nigel Pepper mixing FOH and Jamie Hickey on monitors. Robin Scott was the legendary and unflappable production manager at the helm, with Neil Mather the Mancunian tour manager, with whom Adlib has a long history and who has been described as The most patient man in the world.

Adlib provided crew, with top systems specialist Sam Proctor and an L-Acoustics system. Sam was joined by Terry Smith who looked after stage and monitors for Jamie, plus Aaron Greig and Neil Dodd who completed the audio crew.

The L-Acoustics K1 system was specified by Nigel.

Adlib had supplied a small PA and control package for some warm up shows mid-last year and has previously worked with both Nigel and Jamie to provide a touring control package to their specification on the band Foals.

Snow Patrol live

The Snow Patrol tour's standard system configuration was 14 x K1 speakers a side with four KARA downfills - perfect for delivering the band's characteristic robust and solid sound - together with eight K1 subs flown behind the main hangs to help direct the low end towards the back of arenas. These were supplemented by two side hangs of 12 x K2 speakers each.

On the floor were 21 x KS28 subs in a spaced array. Seven stacks of three high subs, each with a single L-Acoustics X8 on top for front fill.

This allowed each stack to be driven by a single amplifier, leading to tidy and logical cabling. The spaced sub array is Nigel and Sam's preferred set-up for getting even and efficient coverage across the various rooms.

A flown cluster of four KARAs spec'd by Nigel eliminated the need for any infills, helping to keep the stage completely free, which was both an acoustic and an aesthetic decision leaving a clear stage and a flat floorspace uninterrupted by black boxes!

All speakers were driven by L-Acoustics' LA12x amplifiers and all the processing completed at FOH via a Newton multi-source processor. These have been available for around a year and are fast becoming an Adlib standard. Sam has optimized his workflow to put the Newton at the centre of the processing operation, handling all the delays and EQ for each zone of the PA, as well as being a front-end matrix mixer to get all consoles into the system.

Snow Patrol live

Nigel's console of choice is the Midas PROX which he ran with a selection of carefully chosen outboards.

He's mixed Snow Patrol since the last section of the previous touring activity in 2011, and specified the L-Acoustics system because of a long history with the brand and he likes having a load of 15-inch drivers in the system!

In terms of the style' of sound, it's big, bold, assertive with multiple dynamics and plenty of drama, especially in the louder bits. He's not trying to replicate the recorded music in a live context, rather embrace the organic forces of a mix that is every bit truly live' and bursting with raw, gritty energy and detail.

One of the many reasons Nigel feels so at home with the PROX is because he cut his engineering teeth in an analogue world, and this console has really excellent sounding mic amps and EQ among other elements, including the quick and responsive physical input to the faders.

Nigel outlines the importance of being able to feel' the mix', and related to that, the necessity to have quick and direct access to all the parameters he uses constantly like snapshots.

With up to 100 inputs, he finds the console hugely flexible for this MO of mixing and the colour coding is another important part of the console customisation allowing him to have everything he needs at his fingertips.

The outboards were all chosen because he likes them!

There is some science to it as well! Like the console, he wants to be able to grab and manipulate quickly and hear results immediately. The quest is to keep the mix clean and simple, so they are all selected for sonic tactility and to add character to the mix.

There are distressors on lead singer Gary Lightbody's vocal and across the bass group real' ones which he can physically tweak! There're some Tube Tech valve compressors for nice crunch effects on the acoustic and electric guitars, and some classic dbx compressors are constantly used for additional punch and impact harking back to the Midas XL4 days.

Compression is really important to me, especially for those sections when I'm mixing right up to dB limits he commented.

He used some UAD plug-ins for the first time on this tour which he likes - especially the extra distressors which can glue everything together .

Some of the old-skool things sound very nice. As well as great reproduction, you can actually hear so distinctively what they do!

He multi-tracks the show each night, which is used for virtual sound checks, effectively replicating the real musicians and show volumes to give a good representation of what the mix will do in a venue and how the acoustics will interact - all to get the best possible result.

The band are great to work with he reports, adding that you receive plenty of input about what they want, they are generally very encouraging, extremely vocal about what they don't like as well AND receptive to his suggestions and ideas.

You definitely know where you stand!

Gary Lightbody uses a Sennheiser SKM5200ii RF transmitter w

LINK:	https://www.live-production.tv/news/shows/adlib-wildness-snow-patrol.h...
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