Kings of Leon Live

Caleb, Matt, Jared and Nathan Followill are back in town.

6 December 2011

Show Photos: Marty Philbey

The British music press can’t resist a good story. When it comes to bands and musos, sure, being able to hold a tune would be handy, but a colourful back story floats more boats than virtuosity.

So when Kings of Leon emerged, like the remnant of a lost hillbilly tribe out of the Smokies, the UK press were fairly falling over themselves to find out who these boys were. With their long hair and beards, were they the result of a mishap at some secret Clearance Clearwater fertility clinic? Were they really brothers? Were they sons of a preacherman? Had they duelled with the fiddle-playing devil and won…?

Turns out the back story was a far more mundane and familiar one: endless gigging in clubs in and around Tennessee. Slowly building up a following. The van they gigged and slept in found itself pulling a trailer, and then the van was traded in for a bus pulling a trailer. Kings of Leon has been criss-crossing the world ever since. And front of house engineer, Brent Rawlings, has been there since the very beginning.

Brent Rawlings: 10 years ago it was just myself, ‘Nachos’ [Followill, a cousin of the brothers] and the band, driving a van between Nashville, Atlanta and Birmingham. We did that for a while and it just started to build from there.

That period helped the band find its groove before they broke in the UK. They sent a song over and they had a hit on UK radio with Molly’s Chamber. That was our first taste of something bigger.

KINGS OF CLUBS

Brent, like any engineer of a hard-working band on the club circuit, made the sound work with whatever he encountered. But when success started to come the band’s way he had the luxury of hauling his own kit.

BR: I didn’t carry for a long time. But I will say that from very early on I noticed that anytime I plugged a mic into a Midas console it instantly sounded good. So for a while there I would carry just a Midas desk for a club tour and otherwise use what they had installed. And then we’d carry the monitor speakers to maintain consistency for the band. And then we got the band into ears some time later.

Christopher Holder: So the guys weren’t obsessed with being the loudest band in the world?

BR: A long time ago we talked about limiting the stage volume. Sometimes a band comes off stage at 120dB, which doesn’t do any good for the guy out front being asked to stay at 110dB. Just take a look at Jared’s bass rig. He uses two 8×10 bass cabinets – that’s a beast.

CH: So you confronted that fairly early on in the piece? What can we do to keep stage sound under control?

BR: Yeah. I remember a couple of times I would turn off the entire PA and all the monitors and explain to them that we should try and make it sound at least decent like this – with the instruments only. With the PA and wedges off, the drummer is the loudest sound on stage because he’s beating something with sticks. Now just turn your amps up enough to hear yourself over the drums. And then we’ll start ‘reinforcing’ the sound from there, instead of automatically plugging everything in and turning it all up to 11. Do it that way and your perspective gets skewed.

CH: And there’s a flow-on benefit all the way to the FOH PA and the audience…

BR: I mix at around 102 or 105dB A-weighted – real comfortable. I never have a problem with the sound police. I use a lot of compression and can make the maximum volume sit right there, if necessary.

KoL_Brent-pichi — Caleb’s Vox AC30s and Matthew’s Ampeg Reverberrocket combos, both miked up with a combination of a Sennheiser e906 and Audio-Technica AT4050.. Front of house engineer Brent Rawlings with his Midas XL8 digital console.

TUNING THE PA

CH: Power and impact is important in your mix but you’re being especially careful not to let rogue volume spikes skew your mix?

BR: Right. I’m constantly monitoring Smaart [real-time analyser] to make sure nothing’s crazy out of line.

CH: And how do you like to tune the PA?

BR: After our system tech is happy with the sound of the PA in the room, I tune the PA with the vocal mic. That microphone is the hottest instrument, so I bring it to the FOH position and tune the PA to that and get it sounding as sweet as I can. Which is pretty old school but, logically, if that’s going to be the loudest mic in the room…

And Caleb is a hard one. It’s not like his singing is always coming from the guts. Sometimes it’s coming from the throat; sometimes from the nose. He’s got a lot of middle and a lot of high-middle and sometimes it’s pretty honky, so making it loud above a rock band and still having a rock show that pleases an audience – that’s quite a challenge.

VOCAL CHAIN

CH: Can you talk me through Caleb’s vocal chain and how you get his vocal to sit high in the mix?

BR: Right. So, like I said, I tune the PA to that mic, which is the first big step. I then do my best to make his vocal as ‘big’ as I can. I make a big cut in the middle, usually somewhere between 800Hz and 1.5kHz. Then I run it into the XL8’s three-band multi-band compressor, as a channel insert. I let the low section be wide open and the high be wide open, I’ll dial in the middle frequencies and squash it real hard. Somewhere between 600Hz and 1.5kHz.

Next is the channel strip’s compressor which I’m only working a little bit – the only one that’s working really hard is the mid-band compressor because he’s just got a lot in that area.

CH: How are you creating space for that vocal sound in the mix?

BR: By panning the guitars really hard. So hard, in fact, that the side hangs of the PA are ‘opposite’ – you have a main left and right arrays but the sides are the opposite image.

CH: Sure, so people out to the side are still getting a stereo image…

BR: And then on the floor are some small fill boxes and they alternate as well – left, right, left etc. I pan the guitars to the extreme left and right unless Matt’s doing a guitar solo, then I’ll put it in the centre and bring him up. So basically my strategy is just using stereo to my advantage and making the vocal centre. Kick, snare, hat, vocal – that’s my centre.

CH: Do you carve out space in the mix with EQ to give the vocal more room?

BR: Yeah, definitely. I carve out a big chunk of the low-mids of the bass guitar – especially because the low-mid in these arenas is so muddy with room reverb. Same with the kick drum. In fact, I go through and cut the mid frequencies on the instruments as much as I can get away with, while still sounding musical, then it usually leaves me with enough of a hole for the vocal to hold its own.

BASS SOUND

Brent Rawlings: With those 16 x 10-inch drivers in the bass cabs you’re almost guaranteed that a certain frequency in the room will build up. The last thing in the line before Jared’s bass head is an Avalon 737 which we’re using to take a very narrow frequency out of the bass. We find it daily – just listen and think, “no matter what he plays, 113Hz is ridiculous – so we’ll notch it hard.” And it helps for the bass player as well because then his tone is a lot cleaner.

DRUM SOUND

Brent Rawlings: I base everything off the Rode NT4 stereo mic I use as an overhead. It’s not a mic with an amazing flavour, it’s just that it’s stereo and its phase coherence is perfect, because of the fixed X/Y capsule configuration. Therefore, if I put it right above the drummer’s head it’s very true to what he’s hearing and provides a very realistic picture – the snare sound, cymbals, everything sounds very true and provides a good overall mix in itself. So I listen and start everyday with just the Rode NT4 and the kick drum, and I’ll get those sounding as good as I can.

And then for some better treble on the cymbals I’ll mix in some of the AKG C414s that are positioned closer to the cymbals. The Sennheiser e904s on the toms, and on the snare we have a Shure KSM32 on the top and a SM57 on the bottom.

And here’s where a digital desk like the XL8 really comes into its own: I treat the Rode NT4 overhead as ‘zero time’, delaying the other mics back to that mic, so that the snare mic and overhead mic are firing at the same time. So, for example, I’ll have the overhead mic cranked, turn the snare mic on and then grab the delay time of the snare, adjusting and listening for the sweet spot.

That works really good for me. It’s helped me with my snare sound tremendously and the toms. I can get them up in the mix a lot easier but it’s not eating the mix alive.

RIDING HIGH

CH: With the vocal mic so hot, do you leave the vocal mic on the whole time to preserve the overall tone, or duck it as much as you can?

BR: No, I’m definitely riding the vocal fader. I’m using the XL8 desk scene automation to recall effects and mute groups – delay times will change every song and the mutes will come on and off depending on what’s getting used. From there, I’m definitely playing the VCAs a lot and pulling the vocal mic down when Caleb’s not singing. But you’re right, it’s the hottest mic and it’s getting a lot of stage sound – it’s like your ‘downstage overhead’. So I won’t duck it totally, otherwise the overall sound of the mix will change too dramatically.

CH: You just pull it down as much as you dare?

BR: There is so much hat and snare in that vocal mic, and there’s nothing I can do about it. When he steps in front of the vocal mic it’s better but as soon as he moves out of it, then that fader’s coming down a few numbers.

CH: What else are your fingers hovering over?

BR: The XL8 has a bank of user-assignable controls and I’ll assign, say, the lead guitar pan to one pot, because I’m constantly putting Matt into the centre for a solo and then pulling him off to the side when Caleb’s on the mic. And then I have one assignable pot set to be the high-pass filter of Caleb’s guitar channel, because sometimes his tone will get a bit muddy and I’ll need to take a bit of the bottom out to help it cut through in the mix. Other times he’s barely playing it and I’ll need that bottom to come back in. So it’s just stuff I’m having to grab all the time, and it’s great to have that sitting close, just to the right of the VCAs.

CH: Sounds like you’re really making the XL8 your own. Are there times – such as at festivals – when you’re forced to mix on other consoles?

BR: Well, fortunately, the minimum we’ll carry is Control, meaning: FOH desk, monitor desk and monitor wedges, our own microphone package, and our own backline. We’ve got it all multi-pinned and ready to roll. So we can be out, up, patched and checking in 10 minutes. And when I say ‘we’, I’m sitting up at the front of house position, nervous, waiting for the guys onstage to get it done. But the team up there is awesome. So then Saul [Kouta, on monitors] and I just get a line check and that makes it easy.

VIEW FROM SIDE OF STAGE

Saul Skoutarides is a young, switched-on Aussie engineer who flew the local coop three and half years ago – after a stint at Johnston Audio – to try his luck in the Old Dart. He scored a gig with Britannia Row, taking on the job as a tech for a Kings of Leon tour. He’s been kept on ever since, eventually taking over the monitor reins in early 2009. His main weapon is a Midas XL8 mothership. On stage he relies on Future Sonics in-ears, Sennheiser wireless, d&b M2 monitors and Q Subs.

Saul Skoutarides: I don’t overly program things. I use snapshot automation for mutes mainly. I tend to work in a more analogue fashion, which is why I like this board, you can work in that way. I’ve got guys on wedges, ears and both, and I use the desk to make life as easy for me as I can.

CH: I gather Caleb opts for only one ‘ear’?

SK: [With a tone of resignation] That’s right, he’s half on ears. I inherited the gig that way and there’s no point trying to win Caleb around at this point. The lead singer of a band he respects got it into his head that one ear is always better. All I can do is the best job I can in the situation.

CH: For those who don’t know, using one instead of two earpieces makes it harder to give the muso a good mix and they tend to have to crank the level of that one ear. Is that right?

SK: One ear is not a good idea – you can damage your hearing because you have to run it so loud. But I’ve found that I’ve not had to run this particular system blaringly loud. I think that’s because the Future Sonics design is ported (you can adjust the port to augment/attenuate the bass response), so it’s not totally sealed in your ear. I think that helps.

CH: Are you sending the same mix to his wedges and ears?

SK: No, I don’t have everything in both. I have the drums in the wedges. I have the vocals and his guitar in both. The other instruments are in the wedges.

CH: Have you also inherited the mic selections?

SK: We regularly reassess our microphones. For example, our vocal mic used to be the Sennheiser 935. Caleb has a mid-heavy voice – the 1k to 3kHz range can be quite full-on in his voice – so we switched to the Sennheiser MD431 dynamic mic instead. We quite like the 431. It’s harder to come by and, although Sennheiser has been good to us, we’ve ended up having to buy most of the 431s because Caleb has a habit of breaking them. Not in anger, but simply as part of the show – one will take a dive at the end of the night. The construction doesn’t lend itself to handling that sort of treatment. I’ll pick up the mic at the end of the show and hear a tell-tale rattle. Otherwise we use a mixture of Shure, Sennheiser and a smattering of Audio-Technica.

JPJ J SERIES PA

JPJ’s Craig Gordon talks us through the rig:

It’s a d&b J series PA. Eighth Day Sound is the principal provider (from the US) and they have a system tech for FOH and monitors on tour. They rent ‘stacks ’n’ racks’ from us.

The main hang is 32 Js in the main and 24 in the side hangs. There are six J Subs aside in the air and nine B2 double 18-inch ground-stacked subs aside.

The J Series line array really comes into its own when you fly the J Subs. It takes some of the hard work out of the main array (helping to clean up the overall sound), provides pattern control and of course provides some real low-end extension. The B2s are out and out subs. The Rod Laver Arena and the J System work well together – you can get a really tight low end.

The d&b D12 amps have processing and limiting onboard. There are some useful settings in there, such as a coupling filter for when you have a big hang, or a high boost for when you’re throwing further than 80m. We then have two Dolby Lake Processors for time alignment and routing.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY

CH: Can you elaborate on your analogue-style mixing technique on the XL8?

SK: I’ve laid out the board such that I have a load of submixes going on. This approach gives me more flexibility. I then use the matrix section as my masters. I can do that because on this console the matrices are almost exactly the same as auxiliaries, although you can’t assign them to the L/R bus. So I’ve got a bunch of submixes that go into the matrix masters, which means I can have a lot of things on the surface without having to go hunting for them.

CH: Apart from the main ‘culprits’ being right in front of you, how does this approach provide you with more flexibility?

SK: Okay, for example, Matrix 1&2 are my main stereo mix for Caleb’s ears. Aux 1&2 are a stereo guitar sub mix. They bus into Matrix 1&2 as a submix of his guitar only into his ears. That means I can EQ his guitar in his ears only. I’m not performing the EQ on his guitar input channel, which is going to affect everyone else, only his ear, via that aux. The same applies to his wedge mix. His guitar EQ is just his guitar in his wedge only.

CH: Sounds like the XL8 has really won you over?

SK: It’s the sound, the user experience, and the thought that’s gone into the surface that really impresses. For example, the pots are actually analogue with an A/D converter under the surface – it’s a combination of the pot and the software. It means that if you do something really slowly it happens really slowly, as opposed to other systems – when you slow down with a digital encoder nothing happens because the steps between the info are a set distance. Or when you’re sweeping a frequency in the EQ they’ve emulated the whole phase shift – it sounds like an analogue EQ. Which is probably why the board is so expensive, the hardware is uniquely… complicated.

Saying that, I’ve only had it fall over a couple of times, and in ways that could be sorted very quickly. Mainly they’ve been cable issues. If anything internal goes wrong it’ll usually happen in the truck and you’ll notice it on start up – once it’s up and happy, it stays that way.

One thing you need to keep an eye on are the Ethercon connectors. The AES50 audio protocol that links all the units runs on Ethercon. Pins 1 and 10 give the sync. If something gets bumped, and it loses one of those pins for a second, you can lose sync. The answer is to unplug the cable and plug it back in again.

ALL RIGHT ON THE NIGHT

Kings of Leon is a class act and the d&b J Series array was sounding great in the Rod Laver Arena. Sure enough, seeing Brent in action, he’s a busy man on the VCAs. Maintaining a strong vocal presence is of paramount importance to him and it shows. A big powerful drum sound was clearly evident, although not overpowering. I think Rode will find itself selling a few more NT4s as a result – Brent’s technique (although he’s by no means claiming it as his own invention) is well worth trying to emulate [see the Drum Sound box item]. There’s plenty of power and control in the drum sound.

The word on the street is, Kings of Leon will be shortly having a long layoff after 10 years of constant touring. Richly deserved… I’ll have to find out how Brent will cope. I hope he enjoys fishing.

REVIEWED