On the Road

InterviewJanuary 1, 2007Mix Online

Front-of-house engineer Paul David Hager just wrapped up a couple months with the Goo Goo Dolls' tour, which relied on gear supplied by Showco/Clair Bros. The tour used the company's new i3 line array, which Hager was involved with for testing and R&D, augmenting the system with Prism 2 subs and P2 front-fills.

How much gear are you carrying?
The front-of-house console is a DiGiCo D5. Outboard gear comprises two TC Electronic D2 delays, a Line 6 Echo Pro, two Eventide H3000 SE, a Lexicon 480L and PCM70, and a Yamaha SPX990. Our drive rack includes a Crane Song HEDD 192 (AES out of the D5), seven Clair iO and two Sony CD players. We're recording to Pro Tools 7.2 with an Apple G5 Quad and three Accel cards.

What is the miking scheme?
Lead vocal is using a Sennheiser 5200 Series wireless with a K 104 head. Drums include AKG D12 and Sennheiser 901 (kick), Audix i5 (snare top) and AKG 414 (snare bottom), Neumann KM184 (hi-hat/ride), Neumann TLM 103 (toms/overheads), Royer 121/Audix D5/Neumann TLM170/Shure KSM32/Shure SM57 (guitars) and Audix OM5 (backing vocals). Basses are taken direct, and the sax uses an Audix RAD 360 wireless with MicroD.

Any specific mixing techniques?
I use a lot of studio mixing techniques to create a powerful sound without resorting to loud volumes. I do a bunch of side-bus compression. I use a TG-1 on drums and some tube compression on guitars. Also, there are no guitar amps onstage, so I have to create an environment at the very front of the stage that has a powerful sound for the people up-front. With this band, I like people walking away saying that the band rocks more than they thought they would.

Where can we find you when you're not on the road?
In the studio mixing records and eating sushi.

[source]http://mixonline.com/livesound/tours/audio_road_40/[/source]