American prog rock band Dream Theater was founded in 1985 under the name “Majesty” by Berklee School of Music students — guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung and drummer Mike Portnoy. The three added a keyboard player and vocalist and soon became a popular hard rock cover band playing throughout the Northeast.
Soon after, the band began writing original material and, while not an “official” release, they sold thousands of copies of their demo tapes. After gaining a significant amount of exposure, they were threatened with legal action by a Las Vegas band using the name Majesty, and changed their name to Dream Theater in 1986.
Thirty years (and 13 albums) later, Dream Theater are perhaps more popular than ever. Like most long-lived bands, there have been some personnel changes over time, but co-founders Petrucci and Myung are still at it, joined by vocalist James LaBrie (who joined in 1991), keyboardist Jordan Rudess (1999) and “new” member, drummer Mike Mangini, who came aboard in 2010.
The latest album, The Astonishing, was released on Jan. 29, 2016, and continues Dream Theater’s direction in creating a concept album featuring world-class musicianship and lush lyrical imagery woven into a storytelling masterpiece.
The Touring System
Supporting the release, Dream Theater launched a North American tour performing The Astonishing in its entirety, in an immersive and interactive setting. This latest tour leg kicked off at Quebec City’s Theatre Du Capitole on April 14 and continued playing theaters throughout the continent, including prestigious stops, such as Radio City Music Hall.
Sound company VER Tour Sound supplied a d&b audiotechnik V-Series line array rig handled by veteran mix engineers Nigel Paul (FOH) and Stewart Wilson on monitors.
The mains system comprises 24 d&b audiotechnik V8/V12 line array enclosures with 12 d&b audiotechnik Q7/Q10 cabinets handling fills. The bottom-end is handled by eight d&b audiotechnik V-SUBs, employing a cardioid design, with a front-facing 18-inch neodymium driver and a rear 12-inch woofer radiating to the rear. d&b audiotechnik D80 4-channel amplifiers provide the system punch.
“This is my first time out with the d&b V-series, and I’ve been very impressed by it,” says Paul. “To my ear, it has a similar sonic character to the J-series, which I’ve toured with before and think highly of, but for the range of venues that we’ve been playing on this run, the V’s were a better solution when it came to considerations of weight restrictions, sight-lines, flexibility of coverage, etc. It’s a clean-sounding, articulate, linear, tight, powerful system that punches well above its weight.”
The FOH Position
FOH engineer Nigel Paul grew up in England and first came to the U.S. in 1980, landing in New York after graduating with a degree in psychology — something that should be required for anyone in the touring lifestyle. He hitched across America, ended up in San Francisco and decided to stay. He linked up with a British band in the area, driving the van and handling backline.
Observing the role of a sound engineer at close quarters was something of a revelation. “I knew it was for me,” Paul recalls, who launched into several months of “intensive clandestine education” — paging through literature and brochures to figure out how gear worked. “The guys at S.I.R. in San Francisco let me experiment with the rehearsal room systems when they were not in use.” Thinking he had a chance of pulling it off, he asked the band if they’d let him mix a show.
“ I got the thumbs-up after that show, and after a couple more ‘successful’ (i.e., disaster-free) outings, I became the band’s soundman. I still had to drive the van and hump the gear, but I believe an extra five bucks were involved.”
Soon after, Paul was mixing different bands, in different clubs, on widely differing equipment, almost every night of the week. “There were some scary nights when one of those bands would open for a national act in a ‘real’ venue and I was introduced to a level of gear I’d never even seen,” he explains. “I remember waiting to mix on a headliner’s Harrison HM5 for the first time, with no familiarization time or sound check, for a sold-out crowd, wishing I’d never been born. My keep-it-simple, no-heroics approach got me through, and I lived to tell the tale. About a year later, the manager of Chrome Dinette, a popular band in the city at the time, offered me a full-time FOH position with just enough money to give up my day jobs. I’d got my foot on the ladder, albeit the bottom rung.”
Evidently FOH work was in the cards for Paul who, besides Dream Theater, has also mixed for band such as Avenged Sevenfold, Megadeth, Cheap Trick, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Toy Matinee, Yellowjackets, Chris Isaak, Mr. Big; Christopher Cross, Charlie Peacock and Kitaro.
“This is my first time on a DiGiCo,” says Paul, who mixes on an SD5. “There is a learning curve, but the offline software is excellent and helped before I got acquainted with the real thing. The SD5 has a pleasing, solid sound that engenders confidence in what one is doing. The preamps sound very good, and the onboard channel EQs, filters, dynamics processing, effects and graphics are all highly useable. That said, I appreciate having access to the Waves plug-ins, and I’m using a select few, including several iterations of the Renaissance compressor and a CLA-2A.”
Paul also uses two TC Electronic System 4000 hardware reverbs, which are dedicated to vocal and acoustic guitar ambience.
Monitorworld
Monitor engineer Stewart Wilson has definitely paid his dues over the years, starting out back in the mid-1980s as a bartender in a little brownstone nightclub in New York City’s Upper East Side. “I was kind of a novice at audio,” he recalls, “and the owner had an old-school Allen & Heath analog console with a spring reverb, a two-speed tape delay and some old Altec Voice of the Theatre speakers.”
As luck would have it, fate intervened. “One night after closing, about 4:30 in the morning, the owner got a call from Steve Winwood and Jimmy Buffet, who wanted to come over with a bunch of friends and try out some new songs,” Wilson explains. “He said yes, stuck me behind the console and I managed to plug everything in correctly. Winwood played electric piano, Jimmy played acoustic guitar and they previewed songs from the album Back in the High Life album for about 60 people in the room. One of them was the owner of a sound company. He looked at me and said ‘you don’t know what you’re doing.’ I said not really, but he said ‘I had an ear because it sounded tremendous and you should come work for me.’”
As fate would have it, that “guy” was Mark Friedman, who later became a partner at See Factor. “I worked for his small company — American Sound Reinforcement — he had a rehearsal room and a small touring rig and we handled things like Dwight Yoakam and Smokey Robinson on the road, but the rehearsal space had five-star entertainers in there all the time,” Wilson recalls. “I first worked with Joe Jackson, but he also had a ton of jazz artists — Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, Lyle Mays, Pat Metheny, Mark Egan, Danny Gottlieb — and Keith Richards was in there for a month with The X-Pensive Winos.”
From there, Wilson started touring, and in old-school fashion, learned everything on the road. “I began as a monitor engineer, then went to front of house and then back to monitors. I always enjoyed working with the band rather than the audience. If you’re giving artists what they need and they aren’t thinking about their monitor mix, then they are giving a better performance to the audience. Besides, I find monitors more of a challenge.”
The “Dream” Monitor Mix
Wilson is mixing on an Avid Profile “We started out with rehearsals for a week in Long Island, which was just the band and monitors. Nigel was set up in another room with some nearfields working on the house mix, because he started with his desk from scratch. I used the file I had from working with Dream Theater last summer, because I had to throw the mix together really fast. We had one setup day and the band was there for rehearsals the next day. I thought about switching to another desk, but thought better of it due to the time factor.”
Wilson takes a light hand on the effects side, using about 14 Waves plug-ins, “but I’m not really using a lot of effects — none on guitar, bass or keyboards — and some gates on the Profile strip on drums,” he explains. “These are some of the best musicians I’ve ever worked with — especially Rudess and Petrucci — and my theory is not to mess with their stuff — just take it into the desk and give it back to them in a mix. I’ve had no complaints about the monitors at all. And once the band is dialed in, I can pay more attention to the singer, who I feel has the most difficult job on stage, because out of the 34 songs, he sings at least 30 of them.”
The vocal plug-in chain includes a Fairchild 660, reverb and delay and a bit of Harmonizer, because Wilson heard some of the latter on the record. Yet there’s nothing really simple about the production, especially with all the tour’s interlocked, synched projection elements. “Everything is running on timecode to us. We’re on a lot of different clicks — it’s like GPS. The band has to navigate through a lot of time changes and key changes and retards at the ends of certain songs. It’s amazing what these guys are doing.”
Playback tech/Pro Tools engineer Jimmy Meslin is also recording the shows. “I give him feeds straight out of my desk,” says Wilson. “He uses all of his drives to record the shows, which is convenient, because he lives close to John Petrucci and can deliver mixes to him anytime. I’m sure in the break [between the U.S., and South American legs] he’ll mix down some stuff that’s guitar-less so John can rehearse.
Monitor tech Ed Hammond does all the RF coordination. “He does a terrific job, and we have not had a single wireless issue. Everyone is on in-ears — there are no speakers on stage, which is great, because I just spent seven years touring with Korn and they had a ton of speakers on stage and it was really loud.” In terms of IEM’s [fed from Shure PSM-1000 transmitters], Wilson and Mangini use Jerry Harvey Audio 16’s; Rudess is on 1964 Audio’s; and Petrucci and Myung wear Sensaphonics.
Vocal mics include a Sennheiser 5235 capsule on a Sennheiser 5200 transmitter for LaBrie, while Petrucci sticks to a Shure Beta 58A. Miking the 16-piece drumkit is more complex, with an Audix D6 and Shure Beta 91A in each kick; Audix D1 (snare top)/Audio-Technica ATM450 (bottom); Audix D4’s on the floor toms; Shure Beta 52A on gong drum; AKG C451 with CK1 capsule on hi-hats; and four Shure KSM 32s on overheads. Shure Beta 98AMPs seem to be the go-to mic for ride cymbals, utility snare, rack toms and Octobans.
One interesting application of simple-but-effective technology comes with Mangini’s monster 16-piece drum kit, which has some clear Plexiglas panels hung in front of the set. “They have really helped shield some of the cymbal sound out of the vocal mics,” notes Wilson. “It’s just four (18” x 24” and 12” x 24”) suspended panels and it’s really helped the vocal monitor mix. Without these, the vocal mic turns into a cymbal overhead. It’s not like a big glass wall blocking the drummer and it looks awesome onstage.”
So How Do You Really Feel?
“This has been a phenomenal tour,” enthuses Wilson. “It’s the most fun I’ve had in a long, long while. From a production standpoint, it’s got to be the best tour I’ve ever been on.”
Paul concurs. “On behalf of Stew and myself, I’d like to thank Ralph Mastrangelo and the team at VER for their superb equipment packages, service and support. We’d also like to acknowledge Clark Thomas and Ed Hammond, our systems engineer and monitor tech. They, along with ‘Jimmy T’ (who wittingly or unwittingly, became an honorary member of the audio team) put in so much hard work, expertise and care — and deserve a huge amount of the credit for the success of this enterprise. We’re fortunate to work with such great guys.”
“We’ve done 48 shows, and not one of them has had any issues,” adds Wilson. “Everyone is happy and having a great time. The crew is great; the band are awesome guys. I hope this tour runs another year.”
Perhaps it will. Dream Theater’s “Astonishing World Tour” continues later this month, kicking off a series of South/Central American dates on June 21 in Brazil and wrapping up July 11 in Guadalajara, Mexico. And more dates TBA.
Dream Theater “The Astonishing Live” North American Tour
CREW
Sound Company: VER Tour Sound
FOH Engineer: Nigel Paul
Monitor Engineer: Stewart “Stew” Wilson
Systems Engineer: Clark Thomas
Monitor Tech/RF Tech: Ed Hammond
Playback Tech: James “Jimmy T” Meslin
Keyboard Tech: Keith Wechsler
Drum Tech: Eric Disrude
Guitar Tech: Matthew “Maddi” Schieferstein
P.A. SYSTEM
Main Speakers: (24) d&b audiotechnik V8/V12
Subwoofers: (8) d&b audiotechnik V-SUBs
Fills: (12) d&b audiotechnik Q7/Q10
Amplifiers: (7) d&b audiotechnik D80
FOH GEAR
FOH Console: DiGiCo SD5 with two DiGiCo SD Racks
Outboard: Waves SoundGrid servers; (2) TC Electronic System 4000 reverbs
Drive Processing: (3) Lake LM44s
Measurement System: Rackmount PC running Rational Acoustics Smaart 7; PC tablet running Lake and d&b audiotechnik software
Direct Boxes: Demeter preamp; Radial JDX, Radial J48
MONITOR GEAR
Monitor Console: Avid Venue Profile
Outboard: Waves SoundGrid servers
Stageboxes: (2) Avid Venue Stage Racks
IEM Hardware: Eight channels of Shure PSM1000
IEM Earpieces: 1964 Audio; Jerry Harvey Audio; Sensaphonics
RF Software: Shure AXT600 Spectrum Manager
Split System: (2) Whirlwind 56-channel splitters with Jensen transformers
