• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

FEATURE & DAVE ARON – LIVE AT SUPAFEST At this year’s Supafest at the Melbourne Show Grounds, AT caught up with an engineer with a fascinating career, both live and in the studio. Text: Andy Stewart AT !" I think I was the last person to walk through the gate But in 1995 when Snoop asked me to tour with him so that at Supafest. By the time I rocked up the security his gigs ‘could sound as good as his records’, I said ‘sure, guards at the front entrance were wandering aimlessly, head we can work that out, go on the road’. Hey, it was Snoop down, kicking small rocks along the gravel road, wishing Dogg – you don’t want to turn that gig down! It sounded they were anywhere else. !ere was garbage everywhere and fun, got me out of the studio and travelling around the nearly all the acts had come and gone. world, seeing places I’d never been before. At that young age, circumnavigating the globe with Snoop was amazing. I was still several hundred yards away from the main arena at this point but already I had a strong sense that this gig was And it’s still a lot of fun. Snoop and I have a very close going to be loud. Somewhere just over the rise all hell was working relationship these days. I ride with him to the gigs cutting loose – someone was playing a 60-foot kick drum – I don’t ride the crew bus – I get well paid and I don’t have (or so it seemed) and the crowd was responding as one giant to share rooms with other people. !at’s about as good as it acoustic white noise generator measuring up around 100dB. gets on the road. Somehow I had to hook up with Dave Aron – Snoop Dogg’s PARALLELS & DIFFERENCES front of house (and studio) engineer – in amongst all this Andy Stewart: What are the parallels between your studio madness. I pushed through the countless heaving, sweaty, and FOH mixing work would you say? tattooed, weight-trained and cleavaged bodies and screamed down the ear canal of one of the security blokes at front of DA: I have a studio mindset when I’m mixing live, meaning house: “I’M LOOKING FOR DAVE ARON!” to which he that I like to have the gig sound as it would in a studio $rst looked bemused, then thoughtful, then politely stood to through some decent monitors. I’m always trying to one side without responding. eliminate the ambience of the room or venue to make it seem as though I’m in a studio. Having said that, this doesn’t At front of house I quickly spotted a guy looking into mean my technique is the same as if I was in the studio. It’s the crowd in similar bemusement. ‘!at must be Dave’ I quite di"erent even though the results are much the same. thought. I took a chance… “Dave?” Live you’re dealing with open mics and a lot of other things “ANDY, HEY… THANKS FOR COMING MAN, NICE TO you don’t have to contend with in the studio. For example, I MEET YOU!” Dave yelled mercilessly down my right ear do a lot of additive EQ when I’m in the studio, and use less canal. “MAN THAT’S A CRAZY CROWD OUT THERE,” compression, whereas live I tend to use more compression I yelled back, as I put all my crap down and heaved a sigh of and subtractive EQ, and then turn the whole thing up. relief. AS: Why so? From that point on my ears endured more punishment than DA: When you’re in the studio you’re trying to bring out the a Welsh rugby scrum. Glancing around the mix position best of a lot of sounds whereas live, turning things up tends while Nelly played a bad AC/DC cover, I immediately to reveal stu" I want to remove. Consequently, I’m usually spotted a glowing decibel speedo that was proudly ‘taking the garbage out’ with subtractive EQ, and then measuring the gig at 119dB (C-weighted). “BLOODY HELL! turning the sound up to compensate. Instead of increasing IT’S LOUD!” I joked to Dave. “IS THE EPA GUY BOUND the high-mids and highs to make a sound cut through as I AND GAGGED IN THE TOILET OR SOMETHING?” might do in the studio, live I’ll take out low-mids and lows. MIXED EMOTIONS Quite o#en there’s a lot of ugly low-mids coming o" stage. To Dave Aron has been mixing live and in the studio since the me a lot of that information almost hurts your ears live and early ’80s, engineering and mixing countless multi-platinum clouds things in a gaudy way. selling albums for artists such as U2, Price, Dr Dré, Bobby Brown, 2-Pac and the man of this particular hour, Snoop AS: By low-mids are you generally talking about frequencies Dogg. Dave $rst hooked up with Snoop back in ’92 when below around 900Hz, or more like 600? he was only a pup. Dave had been working at the famous DA: I’m talking about say around 630 – 800Hz. Lower than Larrabee Studios in LA with several other acts when the two that too sometimes; it depends on the room of course. I did some recording sessions together and quickly hit it o". $nd a lot of problems at 400 and 500Hz too. So I suppose Since then Dave has worked on several of Snoop’s albums, I’m talking about anywhere from 800Hz all the way down and mixed hundreds of his live shows. to about 160. I’m always ducking and sweeping the EQ so It’s still unusual to come across an engineer that’s been so I can $nd exactly where the problem lies and what makes successful in two disciplines. I knew Dave was a studio it sweeter when I dip it. For instance, with the kick drum I engineer at heart but he looked super relaxed at front of tend to take out anywhere between 400 and 600Hz – I’m just house, blasé even. A#er the show I asked him how he’d gonna pull that right on out. When I take those frequencies managed to become so comfortable with both roles: out I get a much more polished result. Dave Aron: Actually, when I $rst hooked up with Snoop HIP-HOP SUBS Dogg I thought the live side of my engineering life was AS: Has hip-hop got an overall EQ, stylistically speaking, over. I’d done a lot of live mixing when I was in college would you say? mainly because it was easier to do that than get a job in a big DA: No, I don’t think so. Although I sometimes $nd these studio. I $gured it had been fun and I’d loved the immediate hip-hop gigs a little heavy in the subs department. At a rap grati$cation of live sound but I really liked the long lasting gig like this, everyone seems to think it’s very important rewards of the recording industry too. I always like to hear to have a ton of sub and consequently a lot of times the stu" I’ve recorded or mixed on the radio, see my name in PA doesn’t have enough highs and mids to cater to the the credits, hold the album in my hand – like we all do – clarity I’m a#er. O#en they think hip-hop has gotta have an because when the concert’s over, it’s over. overload of bass – and it’s true, it does – but it still has to be AT !" I like bling!: Snoop Dogg’s new Telefunken wireless mic stole the show at Supafest, taking mic bling to a whole new level. even all the way up to the top-end. earlier in the night. I had to break out my in-ear and therefore who to turn up when they’re monitors – sans cables – which do a good job of rapping. Snoop’s gigs on the other hand are very I hate hearing mixes where it’s just too subby. A knocking the sound down to more modest levels, controlled, although a lot of credit for that must lot of times I actually have to turn the subs down but at that point of the show it was pretty much go to the band and Snoop Dogg himself. so that I can get more volume out of the PA. "at all over in terms of !delity… generally gives the system back a lot of its clarity AS: Yeah, they seem incredibly tight. and headroom. You still get the bottom-end, just DA: Ha! I thought that was about normal volume DA: Snoop is dominant and all the other guys without the boominess. for us – a comfortable mixing level. I don’t like to know how to work their mics and be right under go too much louder than that but I certainly don’t I high-pass !lter the low end of the PA up to him – that’s why I think it sounds less chaotic. like it to get any quieter. If it’s less than that I’m maybe 40, 50 or even 60Hz sometimes. "is Add to that the fact that I remove some of the usually dissatis!ed. allows me to turn the whole system up more boominess from the PA and it amounts to a and ironically get more bottom-end out of it.

Load more

  6

Copy Link