The Bay Area’s own Primus performed what has become an annual end-of-year two-night run at Oakland CA’s Fox Theater, where we caught night two of their New Year’s Eve run. The show brought out their loyal fans (many dressed in costume — sharks, whales, frogs and such), all for a very fun night of powerful music with the incomparable talents of Les Claypool (bass / vocals), Larry LaLonde (guitars) and assorted members on drums, percussion, guitar and saxophone.
The View from FOH
Front of house engineer Zach Fichter first started mixing Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade in early 2023 followed by Primus dates in 2024. “It’s still surreal to me to be mixing a legendary band like Primus,” he says. After moving to Richmond, VA in 2013, Fichter started touring with bands from the local music scene, starting with The Southern Belles and others including Butcher Brown, who Fichter still works with to this day. Other tours Fichter has mixed include Turkuaz; the music of Talking Heads’ 1980 Remain in Light album featuring Jerry Harrison, Adrian Belew and others; and Chicano Batman — “leading to Primus,” Fichter says.
The Midas HD96 was suggested at FOH as the way to go when Fichter came onboard. “It made sense since the band had been carrying a substantial amount of Midas IO. We received an HD96 on a show day in the middle of a tour. I programmed and virtual sound checked all day, then mixed the show on it that night. I pretty much instantly fell in love with it and have been using it ever since. Tomasz [Gajewski] at monitors has long been a huge proponent of Midas consoles but had met the Pro2C’S IO capabilities on the Frog Brigade tour in 2023 and was going to exceed them on the Sessanta tour in 2024, so we knew he was eventually going to need to move to a bigger frame. When we received the HD96 for FOH, we spent some time playing with it to make sure we both felt comfortable migrating to the platform going forward, but the choice became clear almost immediately.”
Fichter feels the HD is truly a next generation platform. “Midas addressed all of the quirks of the Pro series and then added quite a bit of innovation on top. The control surface is a joy to use since it can be fully operated by either the massive and responsive touch screen, or by the equally expansive channel strip of parameter-dedicated encoders that when touched call whatever module is being adjusted to the screen.” The console’s fresh features include “Manchino” that enables the user to make sweeping but highly specific changes to any section of the console from one page. “The HD, of course retains the sound quality Midas is famous for. I’ll never forget the first time I turned a gain knob on a Heritage 3000 and thought ‘wow — that sounds amazing,’ and to this day, I still find myself sitting at this desk thinking the same thing.”
Fichter says the HD has just about any plug-in one could ask for onboard. He primarily uses the 1176 (notes: all buttons in!) for parallel drum busses or the “M-Harmonics plug-in, which is a flexible saturation tool. Those just scratch the surface though, there are a wide variety of other popular emulations.”
For outboard rack gear, Fichter falls in the less-is-more camp, primarily relying on the console’s channel processing unless there’s a particular effect he cannot achieve without modeling. “The singular piece of gear I swear by is the Rupert Neve Designs MBT [Master Bus Transformer]. With today’s high-performance line arrays that can effortlessly reproduce sound at damaging SPLs, I’ve found that intentional, tasteful use of saturation can help live shows to be perceived as loud at SPL exposures that are more sustainable for the audience and myself. When the simultaneously available Blue & Red ‘Super Silk,’ a first on an RND unit, are carefully gain staged and fed into the Zener Drive, I am able to exert immense — yet effortless — top-down control to produce these gooey, glued, mixes that retain the feeling of the band’s natural dynamics and feel crushingly loud at surprisingly low SPLs. But the coolest thing about the MBT is that it provides almost no visual feedback. The user must listen to what the unit is doing. In an era where an engineer can be deafened by all the colorful GUIs and analyzers around us, having this one piece of gear that has so much influence on the mix, but forces me to make decisions solely based on what I’m hearing, is invaluable.”
UltraSound CEO Derek Featherstone first toured with Primus as their FOH engineer from the band’s van days through about 2010. Then UltraSound account rep Jason Mills took over FOH before Fichter took the role. “The whole UltraSound organization — top to bottom — has been incredible to work with. It seems that nearly everything that interests me regarding live sound eventually finds its way back to the Dead, Meyer Sound and UltraSound. I always enjoy going to the shop because it has a lot of that history proudly on display. It’s an honor simply to be around the legacy of a company like UltraSound,” Fichter says.
“I always aim to make the mix as refined as possible, no matter where it’s being distributed. I don’t rely on the system to emphasize low-end, aiming for a flat frequency response across the venue rather than a haystack or tilt. This is particularly crucial for a bass guitar-forward mix like Primus where I want to be sure that signal is being reproduced as linearly as possible, in as many places as possible. It’s clear how long Les and Larry have been playing together. The way Larry navigates the space and provides texture around the pillar of Les’ bass is unparalleled. He always knows exactly what and when to play, and the palette of colors he has available at the flip of a switch is unrivaled. I often just set his faders and let him rip, because I’m never worried about him stepping on any other element of the mix.”
Les Claypool has always played with a slew of other musicians, but in the summer of ’24, Primus was part of the Sessanta tour with Maynard James Keenan’s bands A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. “The goal was for every member of the three different bands to be able to play with any other band on any song at any point throughout the night. We had three drum kits, three bass rigs, at least five guitar rigs, some keyboards… It was crazy. The other engineers on that tour, David Gaume, Paul Johnson and of course Tomasz and myself spent a lot of time figuring out the best way to manage it all, and I think the Primus camp has taken that experience with us. Tomasz and I have since built show files with two drum kits, reserved sections for Claypool project regulars like Mike Dillon and Skerik, and at least a dozen miscellaneous guest channels, so truly anyone can show up with any instrument in any city and we’re happy to include them,” explains Fichter.
“So much of the quality of this show comes from our hard-working backline techs. I also owe so much to mentors like Tomasz, my peers both in Richmond and abroad who are always happy to talk and test theories and equipment, and especially the musicians who have entrusted me with their music over the years, many of whom have become like family to me.”
Monitor World
Monitor engineer Tomasz Gajewski first started working with Les Claypool (for Primus and his various bands) 15 years ago. “So far, it’s been an amazing journey of great music, great talent and many technological challenges that make my job interesting and also fun,” he says. “I’m surrounded by an amazing group of folks that I enjoy working with while they poke fun at my foreign accent.”
Gajewski’s fascination with the Midas [Heritage D] console comes from the very beginning of his live sound career. “I was trained on different models of Heritage consoles. Coming from the pro-level analog studio environment, it felt like there was no compromise in sonic quality delivery. At first, when digital consoles took over the live sound industry, I combined more commonly used consoles with third party plug-ins and external inserts. When I switched to a Pro series Midas, I immediately lost the craving for these virtual toys and external enhancers. The newest HD96 is extremely versatile and fully programmable to the user’s liking and show flow preferences. I enjoy the dedicated knobs, which are comfortably placed on the user interface. It brings me back to this touch / feel and hear experience with a much more intuitive approach. As much as I do enjoy the big touch screen, I still prefer using physical encoders for my go-to features. I mostly use the screen for setup and navigation purposes and scene management. The touch and focus feature displays a visual representation of the adjustment made at the given moment, which makes it nearly impossible to adjust the wrong parameter.”
Gajewski enjoys the console’s Manchino function because it allows for quick multi-channel adjustments. He adds that it’s a massive timesaver during show setup. “It’s also a multi-parameter verification overview page that’s very useful during the daily line check and for troubleshooting,” Gajewski notes. “As it was an undiscovered feature for me, at first I kinda brushed it off; however nowadays, I am discovering and utilizing its full potential on a daily basis. Another useful feature, especially for monitor engineers, is a Shout Matrix. This allows us to create and assign different talk / shout submixes without sacrificing any valuable input channels.” Although Gajewski needed to use third party plug-ins in the past, the current HD96 has its own vast plug-in library of studio classic emulations as well as a number of proprietary Midas/KT/TC plugins.
For Les Claypool’s IEM mix, Gajewski uses Les’ favorite studio compressor, the emulation of a Fairchild 670. For all the other mixes, he uses SSL Bus Compressors (KT Bus Compressor), which happens to be his favorite. “On individual channels, I tend to enjoy the standard onboard EQ / dynamics inserts because I find them efficient in tone and dynamic control. Sometimes I use emulations of LA-2a (HD-2a) on vocals, Distressors (Stressor) on guitars, Klark-Teknik 1176 compressors on drums and Wave Designer on toms. If needed, I’ll use the DeEsser plug-in. Built-in reverbs and delays are also state-of-the-art, however with Primus, I only use a hint of a slap delay on Les’ vocals.” Gajewski doesn’t use outboard gear anymore, although, for sentimental reasons, he still carries his personal Looptrotter Saturator.
For this show — as well as in the past — Claypool used a combination of a Shure SM57 and a Shure Green Bullet vocal mic. “They both always needed to be equally loud because Les uses them at will depending on his creative feel at the moment. The Green Bullet mic is going through a J48 Radial DI. For a few years we used a Shure KSM141, as it provided a slightly ‘nicer’ stage bleed into the IEMs than the SM57. With the introduction of a vocal doubler FX pedal, we were faced with a substantially lower quality microphone preamp, so we split the main vocal and ran it dry with an added equal volume of a doubler FX. My faders are linked, so the ratio of dry to FX stays equal. We measured and applied a post FX latency correction so we don’t experience any signal cancellation.”
Over time, Gajewski switched the KSM141 to an Ehrlund EHR-H, and they have been enjoying the sonic quality and an improvement in intelligibility of Les’ vocals. “The EHR-D has become our favorite go-to microphone for almost every application. We personally acquired many of them and use them on guitar cabinets, drums, etc. We’re using a pair of them placed under the vintage 1930s Deagan 725 Xylophone that Mike Dillon plays. They give us a true sound representation as well as an amazingly smooth L-R transition.”
When Primus transitioned from wedges to IEMs about a decade ago, they started with Shure’s PSM 900 system. Currently Primus owns a 10-channel Shure PSM1000 system with a helical antenna. “With the diversified frequency bands, the ease of tuning and the good sonic quality, we haven’t felt the need to look for any alternatives. Les and the entire crew have been using LimeEars Pneuma earpieces. Larry [LaLonde] is using JH [Audio] Roxanne’s.”
Since switching to the IEMs, the stage volume has been well balanced, with the bass and guitar amps complementing the volume of the drum set. “The individual mixes vary quite substantially. Les enjoys a bass, drum kick and vocals-heavy mix with the rest of the inputs moderately balanced beneath. Les’ monitoring is enhanced by a stage left sub, usually a pair of Meyer Sound 900LFC adjusted in volume, depending on the venue acoustics and main P.A.-to-sub interaction with the stage. Larry’s mix is on the quiet side with his guitar being slightly dominant, while his timing is mostly driven by drum kick and hi-hats, very light on vocals. We have used a ‘butt kicker’ in the past, but as of the recent tours, we have been using a single Meyer 900LFC for a mild enhancement of kicks and floor toms.”
More to Come
After a few festival dates, Primus is back on the road for 2025, teaming up with Puscifer and A Perfect Circle for Sessanta 2.0, a six-week trek that kicks off April 24 at The Acrisure Arena in Thousand Palms, CA.
Crew
- Sound Company: UltraSound
- FOH Engineer: Zach Fichter
- Monitor Engineer: Tomasz Gajewski
- Backline Techs: Ryan Becker (bass), Kenny Lopez (guitar), Tim Solyan (drums)
- Tour Manager: John Sanchez
- Production Manager: Padraic McQuillan
- Lighting Director: Todd Jones
Gear
FOH
- Console: Midas Heritage D
- In-Console Effects: 1176; M-Harmonics; M6; Lost in Echo
- Outboard Effects: Rupert Neve Designs MBT; Meyer Sound Galileo
MON
- Console: Midas Heritage D 96; Midas DL231; Midas DL251, Midas DL153; KT 9680
- In-Console Effects: Midas HD 670, HD-2a, Wave Designer; SSL Bus Compressors, Klark-Teknik 1176 compressor; DeEsser; Distressors; reverbs and delays
- Vocal Mics: Shure SM57, Shure Green Bullet
- IEMs: LimeEars Pneuma, JH Audio Roxanne, Shure PSM1000 hardware
