FEATURE KEITH URBAN LIVE

AT 34 I hate to be the one to point out the elephant and week-out. Coming back to Australia to play in the room here… but what’s a bloke with the somewhere like the Rob Laver Arena must be surname ‘Urban’ doing playing country music? like Ian Thorpe doing a couple of laps of the It’s like an LA hip hop producer being called DJ backyard pool… Rural, or MC Primary Producer. Truly bizarre! Steve Law: These are small venues compared And why do country and western acts need so to what we do in The States. That’s especially many guitarists? At times Keith’s got four on the case this year, as we’ve been in the ‘A’ arenas stage, including himself. And it’s not enough over there – last year was a mix of A and B. to play guitar like you sold your soul to the These places are all kinda like the size of the devil, you gotta get one-up on your comrades by Superdome in Sydney, which means there’s a finding some weird-arse left-handed 11-string lot of vertical coverage to deal with – from the bouzouki made out of a Ugandan gourd and highest to the lowest seats. Then you’ve got some tuned to a mode that hasn’t been used since of the venues that are off the Richter scale – just Australia’s very own rootin’ ’n’ Babylonian times. But… just at the point that huge. There’s the Staples Centre in LA, for tootin’ cowboy had quite the you’re feeling kinda ‘in the zone’ with your example. That just massive – it’d be six times left-handed pumpkin, the song finishes… and, the size of Rod Laver. homecoming, complete with a believe me, it is complete anathema in hi-falutin CH: With lots of screaming cowgirls in the Country circles to play the same guitar twice in brand new Adamson line array. audience? one night. No sooner has your gourd stopped Text: Christopher Holder vibrating, your tech rushes on stage to plug in SL: That’s one of the biggest things I have to the custom two-string semi-acoustic lap-steel deal with – the volume of the crowd – and tea-chest that you’re so fond of. So you can only it’s very hard to get over the audience in some imagine what the breaks between songs are like! venues… especially at the start of the show. I Keith Urban resembles a quarterback doing mean, they just go crazy. You stand there and his best to not be sacked by a guitar tech team go: ‘well I think the PA’s on’. They quieten down of defensive ends and nose tackles as they fly eventually but there are moments where it’s around the stage plugging and unplugging. ‘fingers in ears’ time. And there’s no point in fighting it. It’s silly to just keep turning the PA Steve Law is Keith Urban’s front-of-house up – it defeats the whole purpose – you’ll turn it engineer, and all these guitar-swapping into a mad house! KEITH shenanigans make his life interesting. Steve Law: I like it, it makes things interesting. I FILLING ARENAS just have a snapshot on the [Digico] D5 for each CH: What’s the trick to filling those larger song, which acts as a starting point and mutes spaces with hi-fi sound? the stuff that doesn’t need to be on. There are so SL: It all starts with the band, and this year many instrument changes that you’ve got to make we’ve focussed on nailing that arena ‘thing’. sure the stuff that’s not being used is off. That means keeping the guitar parts a bit simpler and a bit tighter. Anyone anywhere will TOKEN AUSSIES tell you the best rhythm section in the world is Steve (along with Keith Urban, I guess) is AC/DC because they’re just so tight – the notes the ‘token Aussie’ in an all-American touring are so definite and precise. Our guys worked party. He’s been mixing Keith for years, and really hard to develop definite parts, rather than this means he gets to play with expensive kit, just a big wall of sound where they’re going at it amazing PAs and in enormous arenas week-in URBAN all at the same time. LIVE

FOH Engineer, Steve Law (left) and System Engineer, Jason Norman, explore possibly the most clichéd PA photo pose in the industry. And we let them!

AT 35 MORE ON Much like L-Acoustics, get the highs behaving which is spring-loaded and ADAMSON Y-AXIS Adamson characterises its properly Adamson retractable – making it If you’ve never heard of PAs as line source arrays, employs a waveguide with easier to pack away. Adamson before, don’t as opposed to the more a unique shape… a bit like Adamson has developed beat yourself up too much, common or garden-variety L-Acoustics with its DOSC its ‘Shooter’ software to but be prepared to hear a line array. The source of waveguide. Both the Y18 give you a helping hand lot more in the near future. the ‘source’ distinction and Y10 offer 100 degrees when you’re designing The company’s been is the Y-Axis System’s of horizontal coverage and your system, and offers around a while – Brock proprietary Co-Linear boast high SPL specs. a bunch of sophisticated Adamson began tinkering Drive Module. Adamson’s Adamson makes some prediction tools. in his shed back in 1983 ‘sound chamber of its drivers and are – but has only really come There are a number of within a sound chamber’ aficionados of Kevlar. The to the world’s attention other speaker lines in the produces what’s described Y10 employs a proprietary in the last 10 years. And Adamson stable, including as ‘a perfectly curved, 10-inch Kevlar cone with now there’s a real buzz some wedges, and, of iso-phase, co-linear sound neodymium drivers. surrounding Adamson course, companion subs source of both mid and The monster T21 (dual – its speaker systems are for each of the arrays, but high frequency energy’. 21-inch) sub also uses a widely viewed as being in Adamson isn’t anything In other words, if you get Kevlar/neodymium combo. the top echelon. Adamson all your sound (from the like a JBL, Turbosound builds three arrays: the highs down to the low Adamson is very proud of or Martin Audio – you’re Y10 (which Norwest has) mids) leaving your box at its rigging hardware and not going to knock on and the heftier Y18, while precisely the same time even has a TLA (Three the Adamson door if the compact SpecTrix ar- then you stand to all-but Letter Acronym) for it: you’ve got a nightclub or ray is normally purchased eliminate time-smear, mid AIR (Adamson Integrated restaurant to fit out – its as downfill, but can also be lobing and comb filtering Rigging). It’s based on a reason for existence is to slotted into balcony/delay – and, presto, you have revolving disc to select build and sell line source duties etc. a line ‘source’ array. To the desired splay angle, arrays.

“ I ac t ually ge t a be t ter snare CH: Which must make your life easier? made these ones for Keith. They’re a little higher powered than the normal ones he builds. SL: Sure. Now everything has its place in the sou n d f ro m t he overhead mic And the cabs have two different drivers, and mix without having to dig holes with EQ. totally different tonal qualities come out of each f ive foo t away t han I do f ro m Because that’s the normal technique: dig a hole driver. So we double-mic them. I use a Royer in the EQ to fit that instrument in, then dig t he snare mic .” ribbon on one driver and a Shure SM57 on the another hole for the next instrument… you other, and the combination of those is really end up colouring the tone of the instruments to good – the Royer’s really warm and the 57 gives make them fit into the mix. I’m not a big fan of you the poke and smack. EQ in the first place – I reckon if you have the right stuff on stage and the right mic then you CH: A Royer 121 on tour, in front of a full should be able to just run it flat – so this tour’s throttle guitar cab? That’s a big call. approach suits me down to the ground. SL: It is an expensive mic and it is very fragile CH: And I guess it’s about the tone of the – if it gets dropped it’s history – and I’m not guitars as well as the arrangements? saying we didn’t umm and ah about it for a while; but it’s the best mic around. When we go SL: Right. The guys have all gone through into the studio we put a Royer up, so why not do various configurations of amps… we’ve tried it live? And these types of shows, where no one to mix and match a bit as well. Obviously if else comes near it, it’s not so bad. When we get you play a Marshall head through a Marshall to the festivals we might need to re-think things cabinet it’s very different to playing a Bad Cat – there’s no way I’m going to let some stagehand head through a Marshall cab. After lots of chuck it around. experimentation each of the guys now has a unique tone, which makes it a lot easier to get CH: Any other examples of microphone them all sitting in the mix properly. There are bravery? A Neumann U47 on the kick perhaps? times when four electric guitars are playing at SL: I’m using another Royer – a stereo SF24, the same time, and fitting that into a mix is which is an insanely expensive mic – for drum usually a major effort. But we’ve got it working overheads. But it’s absolutely amazing. Truly really well. amazing! The best overhead mic I’ve heard. It And Keith tends to lay back a bit more these sounds totally transparent… you can almost do days. Now there are more guitarists in the away with the rest of the drum mics. band, he can concentrate on his singing more CH: Well, I notice that you’ve placed the SF24 and the parts he really needs to play – the solos quite high – it’s evidently more than a ‘cymbals – without having to be there the whole time, mic’. chugging away and filling up the sound. The other guys can cover that. He can take a back SL: Yeah, it’s funny, because I actually get a seat on the playing a little bit. And that helps better snare sound from the overhead mic five with the mix. And when he comes in it just gets foot away than I do from the snare mic. It’s a bigger. thicker and nicer tone. CH: So do you find yourself pushing up the VICE ROYER overhead mic more these days? CH: I notice you’re double-miking Keith’s guitar cabs. SL: With that mic I do. I’ve definitely got more of the overheads than any other mix that SL: He uses a custom amp hand made by a guy I’ve done. Most other mics catch too much of in the US. They’re called 65s. He specifically

AT 36 the highs and it just doesn’t sound real. With you’re touring with a PA that they’re familiar this mic, you put it 10 feet away and it sounds with, you can walk away and let them fly the the same as if you’re two feet away. There’s no whole thing. You couldn’t do that in the US, not proximity loss – you’re not losing all that nice in a pink fit. Not to mention the unionisation in warmth and fullness of the cymbals instead of the US. There are guys over there who will push them just going tssss, tsss, tssss. And I can run the PA to the bottom of the truck and different it down all the way to 150Hz. That’s something people who will push it up the ramp and a you don’t normally do with overhead mics, you’d different bunch of guys that load the truck… normally be rolling it out about 300 to 400Hz. and they don’t ever leave the truck, they just sit It just sounds so nice… it even picks up the kick in the back of the truck and talk to each other drum nicely! all night… ’cause the truck drivers pack the truck – ‘they know the pack’. There’d be times DRUMS – TIGHT AS in the US when I can remember just yelling at CH: You’ve got two ELI Distressors in your the hands… because they seem to have no idea. rack, which I gather are for keeping the drums You say, ‘take the lid off the case’ and they just in check? look at you like, ‘what’s a case?’, ‘what handle?’. SL: That’s right, they’re for the kick and snare. They must get these people from just anywhere. We have two kick mics, which I’ve grouped to a So that makes the days pretty long over there. mono bus then send out to a Distressor and back Saying that, we’ve had some frustrating times to the console. It works pretty hard. Distressors in Australia as well... so there’s room for are great ’cause you can be hitting 10 or 12dB improvement all ’round. of gain reduction and you really don’t know that you are, until you hit bypass… The snare Distressor isn’t doing a huge amount of work but enough to keep the sound more consistent. CH: Then you’ve got an ELI Fatso as well? SL: Yes, the Fatso is on the rest of the drum kit. Saying that, it doesn’t really do a lot of compressing. It takes a little bit of the highs off when our drummer really starts slamming the cymbals, but it’s mainly there to keep the latency the same between the kick, snare and the rest of the drum kit. CH: Really? SL: Well, obviously when you go out of a digital console to an insert device, you’re going through a set of digital converters and back in again analogue… you get about a 5ms latency going on. So if I send the rest of the kit out and back in, it brings everything else back in time. If you take the Fatso out you hear it kinda flanging. The toms sorta go c’hoah c’hoah… really THE NEW CH: What intrigued you how the subs and the Y10s – that the system strange tone. ADAMSON Y10 RIG most about the rig prior to cross over? tracks almost perfectly Norwest Productions has working with it? SL: No. There’s a lot more – whatever goes in, comes CH: bought a new line array. It’s So the Fatso is a very expensive delay JN: Personally, it was how low-end coming off the out. It’s as close to perfect an Adamson system, the compensation device then. the 10-inch drivers in the 10s than what I’d thought. as just about any rig I’ve first in Australia, based on Y10 would perform and And T21s… originally we used. So in that respect 56 Y10 enclosures, 12 T21 SL: Yes! But it does do something. You can tell how full the sound would flew some subs up in the the phase coherency subs and eight SpecTrix when it’s not there. I’m running it in Transformer be. air and ended up taking seems to be really on the underhang speakers. I them down – we didn’t money. Especially in the mode on the output. Which warms it up. know it’s only the middle Steve Law: Especially with need them. deader venues where the of the year but it’s unlikely this band. There are so reflections from the side CH: Tell me about the vocal mics? that there will be a bigger many guitars… and a lot Jason: We’ve ended up hangs don’t come into play. PA purchase than this one of volume coming off the with four a side on the SL: They’re all on Shure Beta 87Cs hardwired CH: Is it easy to rig? in 2007. The Keith Urban front edge of the stage ground. We’ve gone from for the background vocals and Shure UHR tour was the first outing – about 108dB, in fact. The six a side to four a side. JN: You have to do your wireless for Keith’s. He has six mics set up for the Adamson system PA has to work hard to get SL: Actually we’ve gone homework but we started over that… at 9am and it was up by in strategic locations around the stage. I send in Australia. Norwest were from 12 a side! using 24 Y10s in Doha for lunch. JN: And it’s not working JN: That’s right. We’ve all the vocals to a stereo group and then they the Asian Games, but this hard at all! gone from six in the air CH: And what are you was the real baptism. The go through a pair of Crane Song Trakker SL: Right. It’s handling it and six on the ground, to using in the drive rack? Y10 has big wraps on it and compressors. very easily. none in the air and four JN: Dolby Lake Proces- I was definitely intrigued a side on the ground. So sors – two a side – all to hear it in action and to CH: And the sound? that’s how efficient those controlled wirelessly on DUMB & DUMBERER find out what Steve Law SL: I like the sound of it. subs are. Pretty wild. the tablet PC and all CH: Apart from the obvious differences in scale, and system engineer, The subs are the most interfaced with Cat-5. do you notice much of a difference when you Jason Norman, had to say. amazing subs I’ve ever CH: They certainly sound even and phase coherent It’s a neat setup and easy CH: It must have been a bit heard… Sensational. The return to Australia for a tour? to me. to control. We use Lab. of a buzz to unleash this T21 subs are awesome – a Gruppen fp6400 amps. SL: I find the stagehands here are generally system for the first time. lot of low end. JN: The coverage is There are 13 racks of six very even and it’s phase Jason Norman: It’s CH: Seems like there’s amps, although there are better. The companies here try to make an effort coherent right down to the definitely exciting to get a a bit of a jump from the some spares amongst to train them to actually know what they’re low-mids. new line array. And it was 10-inch speakers in the that lot. doing. There will be specific people that know impressive from the first Y10s to 21-inch speakers SL: I notice on the analyser audio and people who know the lighting. So if moment we turned it on. in the subs. No issues with – we’re using Smaart Live

AT 37 “ From our tests, we get around 6dB more out of each T21 E L I FAT S O J r A s t e r e o g r o u p s e n d compared to any other dual 18 o f t h e kit – m i n u s kic k a n d s n a r e – i s we’ve compared it against.” s e n t t o a Fa t s o .

ELI DISTRESSOR

St eve L aw u s e s a Di s t r esso r ea c h t o co m p r es s t h e kic k a n d s n a r e .

CRANE SONG TRAKKERS

A p ai r o f Cra n e S o n g Tra k ke r s t a ke a s t e r e o su b mi x o f all t h e vo c al s . T h e Tra k ke r i s a Cl a s s A c o m p r e s s o r/li m i t e r.

CRANE SONG STC8

T h e Cra n e S o n g S TC 8 i s n o r m a ll y a bi t o f a mas te ring h o u se s te reo co m p r es s o r/li mit e r favo u r it e , b u t St eve ’s g o t it wo r ki n g o n b a s s : “ it ’s o n e o f t h e b es t b a s s g uita r co m p resso r s I ’ ve eve r h e a r d .”

Elsewhere in Steve’s rack (not pictured) is a G5, used to run Cubase SX3 and record the shows straight off the mic pres, via MADI straight into a recorder. “We can take it straight to a studio and do what we like with it.” The G5 is loaded with two RME MADI cards, and 2 x 300GB serial ATA drives, striped as a raid array. “Also very handy for virtual soundchecks to fine-tune stuff.”

INTERVIEW WITH system to behave like a chamber seized out of a chamber creates a bunch system. If you take a look at any other dual 18 we’ve MANAGING DIRECTOR, line source. It doesn’t. They PA system by some French of cells with different path another great design – for compared it against. JESSE ADAMSON overlap, they interfere, and official – L-Acoustics lengths, which itself sits example, Doug Button’s CH: The 21-inch drivers of Christopher Holder: Seems they don’t work correctly. had sued Adamson and it inside a clam shell-like dual coil device for JBL the T21 marry okay with the like the market for big line Then there’s the issue of was wrapped up in that mid range horn that wraps – it doesn’t have the back 10-inch drivers of the Y10? arrays isn’t going away. driver spacing – drivers investigation. Regardless around it. So the midrange spider. So they have this need to be placed half a of how close our design device goes into these two really long coil that floats JA: Definitely. People Jesse Adamson: One of the immediately think of comments I used to hear wavelength away from each was to the L-Acoustics slots on the outside and the around inside the gap. other to couple effectively. design, we developed it HF fires through the centre Because of that, they have the 21s from the past, in around 2001 – early in which had a reputation the life of the Y-Axis – was We’ve known that theory based on the belief that of it. to increase the gap size for more than 50 years but the JBL 2405 slot tweeter to give it some clearance for being sludgy and slow. “Oh, everyone’s got a line CH: Tell us some more But this is purely about array now”, and they’d talk you look at half the designs constituted ‘prior art’. about the T21 sub. It seems as it moves around. But on the market and they still Anyway, L-Acoustics was a when you increase the gap the relationship between about it like it was a fad like a complete brute. the magnetic force in the or something. I strongly don’t follow those rules. So bigger, stronger company size you have all this air yes, to have a line source than us and we didn’t JA: This is Brock’s design insulating the coil, which, motor and the number of disagree with that. Some and I can’t take any credit windings. By which I mean, people have jumped on array you have to find the want them smacking us in turn, causes thermal optimal driver spacing and around so we immediately for it but… the T21 is power compression as it doesn’t matter how big the bandwagon, but what a seriously impressive the moving mass is – within Christian Heil introduced you need some kind of wave re-tooled and designed a that air heats up. By shaping device to fix the HF different sound chamber device. We’ve created a having that back spider in reason of course – so with the V-DOSC system system with a long voice long as you have a motor was probably the first section. and recalled all the existing there, the voice coil stays stock that was in the coil former – it’s a six-inch still – there’s no lateral that’s strong enough. In the big step forward in PA CH: I’ll get you to confirm or dual coil with a really long past, if you used a ferrite technology in years. deny an interesting story I market. I think it was a movement whatsoever blessing in disguise in the coil former – and we have a – and you have these magnet, it was almost CH: Adamson describes picked up from the rumour end, because the new sound spider at the very bottom really tight tolerances (no impossible to get enough Y-Axis as line source mill. Namely that your dad chamber works better. of the coil former, a spider significant air gap), which magnetic flux to do the job. systems, which is largely Brock, during a visit to We’re happy. And in the end at the top of the coil former pulls all this heat away. We You’d have this massive down to how you get your France, was locked up and L-Acoustics’ patent was and a third intersection dump a whole Lab.Gruppen magnetic structure. high frequencies ‘coupling’, then deported for ripping struck from the records. where the cone connects. fp6400 into one of these Neodymium changes all right? off L-Acoustics’ DOSC lens So what you have is the that. We’ve built a six-inch design. CH: The mids and highs are subs – one driver takes JA: Right. You can’t simply first large-format woofer neodymium slug that’s mounted co-axially, is that one side of a Lab 6400 at line up a bunch of HF horns JA: That’s the best one in our industry that has about three quarters of an correct? 2Ω. It’s a pretty monstrous adjacent to one another I’ve heard! I’ll make sure I really tight tolerances thing. From our tests, we inch thick – it’s the biggest and stick them in a sausage pass that one on! Here’s JA: Yeah. We call it a ‘sound and great heat dissipation get around 6dB more out piece of neodymium that shaped box and expect the the real story: back in chamber within a sound – again, because of this of each T21 compared to I’ve seen anyone use in a 2000 we did have a sound chamber’. The high frequency great, stable, suspension speaker.

AT 38