Balancing Act Bringing Structural form to Live Sound for Alicia

This was one of those gigs you can really love, he says of what was notably Keys' first major tour in the U.S. and Canada in nine years. Every day brought a new challenge; you never knew what was coming. For some that may produce undue anxiety or pressure, but I view things differently. Regardless of what you face, there are no problems, only solutions. Approach your job in that fashion and there isn't anything that can't be worked out.

Working lockstep with Patterson to bring the show's audio to life were front of house engineer Bill Sheppell, system engineer/crew chief Leon Fink and monitor engineer Kevin KG Glendinning. With Clair Global supplying sound reinforcement elements and touring support, the Lititz, PA-based sound company's Cohesion CO-10 enclosures gave substance to the PA with 56 of the boxes total in the main hangs and sides.

Meanwhile, a dozen ground-dwelling Cohesion CP-218 subwoofers brought up the low-end, while eight Cohesion CO-8 enclosures stood in regularly as frontfills. Power requirements were met via 36 Lab Gruppen PLM 20K44s. A pair of Lake LM 26s were used for sub crossover, while two more managed system drive at front of house.

We considered using CO-12 enclosures, Sheppell notes, but we would have had too many issues with rigging limitations and weight. We examined our prospects with the CO-10s using EASE Focus 3D modeling and determined they would work. Sometimes we could have had a little more, but it wasn't a matter of oh my god this is not enough,' it was more like wow, these compact boxes really kick some ass.' I'm essentially a d&b fan, but I had no complaints with the CO-10s at all - I really liked how they sounded.

Equipped with the Cohesion Series interchangeable Hornserts, which provide adjustment for different dispersion rates to be created on the CO-10s, under Fink's direction the PA enclosures could be quickly adapted as needed to provide horizontal beamwidths of either 80 or 120 degrees depending upon the needs of the venue, which varied from sheds and large theatres to arenas.

In some sheds where we didn't really need the side hangs we'd go with all 120s, Sheppell says. Or just put 80s in the top four to throw to the back of the lawn. Coverage was good every day no matter where we were, Leon was a master of tuning, and every other aspect of the audio for that matter. If I would have had to leave the show for some reason, I would have felt totally confident just handing it all over to him because he knew things so well and is so attentive to detail.

EVERYONE'S ADVANTAGE

Out front, Sheppell's choice was a Quantum338 digital mixing console from DiGiCo. My philosophy, he says, is that if you're using a digital console, then stay in the digital realm. I try to do as much as I can onboard, and one of my primary mix goals is to present each song with the energy it should have, giving it everything it needs, but not too much. I don't want to cloud my mix, especially when I get into tracks.

With regards to the latter, I find that sometimes when you start pulling things out it works to everyone's advantage. The audience is always both watching and listening, and video walls give everyone a close-up view. If the crowd is watching someone in the band playing and they can't hear it in the mix, something is missing. All my mix elements have to be in the right spot at the right time, that's the goal.

The system was exclusively digital from the DiGiCo stage rack all the way to the amps in order to steer clear of any unnecessary D/A-A/D conversions. Lake processing in the house traveled via AES and Dante to the amps with analog fallback kept at the ready.

Every aspect of the system worked very reliably, Fink reports. There were no amp or clocking issues. On an operational level the most important tasks had to be completed in the morning. First, we had to get our PA motors in the right spots. Next we made sure our measurements of the venue were spot-on via either drawing the venue from scratch or verifying what we had on file was correct.

Lastly we had to take the time to crunch all our numbers using EASE Focus to make our predictions. Making a mistake in any of these three areas was not an option. These were the fundamentals that had to be covered for the gig on any specific day.

Trimming the PA was accomplished with tape measures for height and inclinometers and lasers for up and down tilt. Once everything was rigged and checked to insure that it was in top working condition, tuning took place. Gain shading was done once again with EASE Focus, with the arrays being controlled in groups of two and an option made for controlling high frequency sections individually. Time alignment of all the elements was critical, especially with regards to the phase alignment of the subs in what was a bottom-heavy show. Both Sheppell and Fink managed the equalization process, usually just by simply adding as much EQ as the environment called for.

SYMBIOTIC ORBIT

Keys is gifted with a rich, mezzo-soprano voice with a solid lower register. She has a remarkably powerful chest voice and a penchant for belting out notes, most notably in the fifth octave.

On the second day out this summer I met with Alicia's long-time creative partner, engineer and producer Ann Mincieli, Sheppell recalls. We went through the show together and based upon her input I would basically add a little EQ and multiband compression here and there and store each song with that voice. Once I setup these snapshots of the vocal color, I never did any correction for a song anywhere else. I could use her stereo vocal group for room correction, then do de-essing with Waves F6 and clean up any muddiness in the lower registers. If ever a song needed some air, I had everything to make that happen ri

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