Sound Company
Solotech UK
Venue
Various (Tour)
Crew
- FOH Engineer: Dave Roden
- Monitor Engineer: Sam Cunningham
- Audio Tech: Ian Burness
- Tour Manager: David “Zop” Yard
- Production Manager: David “Disco” Nelson
Gear
FOH
- Console: DiGiCo Quantum 338 Pulse
- In-console Effects/plugins: SPX990, various reverbs, delays
- Outboard Rack Effects/plugins: Empirical Labs EL8 Distressors, Rupert Neve Designs 5045 Primary Source Enhancers, SPL Audio Transient Designer 4
MON
- Console: DiGiCo Quantum 338 Pulse
- In-console Effects/plugins: reverbs and delays, Waves
- Outboard Rack Effects/plugins: Bricasti M7 reverbs, Large Hall
- Vocal Mics: Neumann KMS 105, Shure Nexadyne 8
- IEMs: Shure Axient ADTQ
- Wedges: d&b audiotechnik M4’s
Tour Notes
Stereophonics’ Spring Tour 2025, in support of the band’s 13th album, Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait, trekked across North America from March 21 (in Montreal) to April 11 (Mexico City) relying on a variety of venue-supplied speaker systems. The band will be moving up to stadium shows in the UK and Ireland this June and July, wrapping up with a homecoming show in Cardiff, Wales.
Steve Jennings recently chatted with FOH egineer Dave Roden and monitor engineer Sam Cunningham. His report follows.
Stereophonics, the Welsh rock band, performed a stellar show in its almost two-hour set that combined classic hits and songs from this year’s 13th studio album release, Make ‘em Laugh, Make ‘em Cry, Make ‘em Wait. The crowd soaked in the excellent audio mix for a great night of music (as well as singing along) to many favorites.
FOH Engineer Dave Roden [Roden Audio] will mark his 30-year milestone next year, saying he’s been very fortunate to work for a lot of amazing artists over the years. With Stereophonic as a principal client over the years, he has mixed Billy Ocean, Lissie, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Placebo, Rita Ora and Van Morrison, among dozens more.
For this U.S. leg of the tour, Roden is using house PA systems. “When it comes to PA’s I don’t think there are many types of audio systems I haven’t run into at some point in my time, and that’s been equally true of this tour. There’s been a wide range of sizes, shapes and types. The overriding principle still remains, though — if the system is installed and configured correctly for the venue and has been well maintained, then it’ll perform perfectly. We’ve recently used systems installed 25 years ago and one just three weeks before we arrived and their performance was very similar in a lot of ways. That reinforces my previous point, I think; but it’s also about the attention to detail and professionalism of the venue audio staff that we integrate with on a daily basis. Our standards are exceptionally high as an audio team, which does present challenges sometimes, but I’m always extremely proud of the results we achieve under any circumstances, and that translates to the audience experience for the shows.”
Roden is mixing the tour on a DiGiCo Quantum 338 Pulse. He recently moved from the Quantum 5 and says it’s been a pretty smooth transition. “For this tour, our input list is just over the 80 mark, plus the usual returns for shout and measurement mic’s, etc. It’s higher in other territories, like the UK, as the shows are significantly bigger there, and in the past, they’ve featured B-stages and other performance locations which have required multiple drum kits, etc. That’s meant using a network of remote stage boxes linked by an Optocore system.”
Roden notes he uses Waves a lot with other clients, but not this one. “All my effects are derived internally from the console. Stereophonics aren’t an effects-heavy band really, so it’s a case of enhancements rather than effects.” Roden uses three separate drum reverbs- for the snare, a short gated reverb, (as close as he can get to “Big Snare” on an SPX990), overlayed with a bigger room reverb and a Drum Plate for the Toms. “The “SPX” is recall-safe, so only alters in level, but the size, shape and texture of the other two reverbs is automated per song. For keyboards (mainly piano and Hammond organ), it’s just some natural room ambience when needed. For acoustic guitars and brass, I use a combination of a Room, Plate or Hall reverb with a Thickener, similar to ‘Symphonic’ on an SPX990, or ‘MicroPitchShift’ on an Eventide H3000. For vocals, I use a very short Non-Linear reverb just to add a slight vocal booth feel to the quiet songs. I’ve found that this enhances the feeling of intimacy to Kelly’s voice and for anything else it’s simply a clean Vocal Plate.” Roden also adds some delays very sparingly to certain songs. “These can be anything from a Rockabilly Slap to a complex stereo Tap Delay depending on the song.”
Roden only uses three types of outboard gear. For vocals, it’s Empirical Labs EL8 Distressors and Rupert Neve Designs 5045 Primary Source Enhancers. For drums, it’s the SPL Audio Transient Designer 4. “They’re brilliant bits of kit, and I’m not sure how I managed without them before,” he says.
“I feel very privileged to have kept a place at the table in this industry for so long. It still seems very recent to me that I was just starting out and watching, learning from and sometimes even working with industry legends like Gary Bradshaw, Mick Hughes, Joe O’Herlihy, Roger Lindsay, Pete Keppler and Jim Ebdon, who were producing amazing results, (seemingly effortlessly..!), for global superstars in enormous venues. I also found that I was following in the giant footsteps of my namesake, John Roden, who’d worked with more names than all of the others put together,” he says.
“As a fledgling engineer it all seemed very daunting and completely out of reach, but here I am three decades later, having accomplished things myself that I never thought possible, and it’s thanks to the knowledge and support of those engineers I met along the way, combined with the confidence in me of Stereophonics and all my other clients, that’s enabled me to become an old man of the industry now, which I still find incredibly hard to believe,” he adds.
“Since [Monitor Engineer] Sam Cunnimngham’s arrival in the Stereophonics camp, of all the people I’ve worked with, he has had the most influence on me,” Roden adds. “His technical knowledge is outstanding. His dedication to providing the best service possible to the band and his team and the application of these abilities is delivered with surgical precision and along with his thoroughly engaging personality, he is in my opinion a future ‘John Roden,’ destined to become an industry legend himself and most certainly the equal of any others I’ve mentioned previously.”
Sam Cunningham, Monitor Engineer for the tour, is going on his sixth year with the band, having been the Audio Tech and Playback Tech for the four years prior to that. Cunningham says he’s loved mixing on the DiGiCo SD7 Quantum and considers it to be one of the most flexible mixing surfaces out there, but for this tour, he and [Dave] Roden both agreed to take out the new DiGiCo Quantum338 Pulse consoles to save on freighting and hire costs as the band would not be deploying any extra gimmicks or B-stages at the smaller U.S. shows. “The console is certainly worthy and sounds fantastic, but I do miss my silky smooth SD7 Faders,” Cunningham says. “I find that when you combine the DiGiCo surfaces with their top-of-the-range I/O and Optocore that you can get a really good result, with endless flexibility which translates into consistent results, and less work day-to-day.”
Cunningham says depending on the project, he thinks that when mixing with IEMs, reverbs and delays are essential to create space and placement for an artist. “I have never been a fan of the ‘Direct’ and ‘Dry’ IEM mixes some artists prefer, and I am lucky to work for artists that want it to sound like the record in their mixes. On this tour, I employ a rack of Bricasti M7 reverbs which I use for vocals, acoustic guitars and a single Large Hall for general FX. There really is nothing better than Bricasti’s. I also use the internal FX for delays and slaps on many different channels. I have often used Waves and other plugin brands, but I am always wary of those who stack plugins to get their results.”
Lead vocalist Kelly Jones is using a Neumann KMS 105 for his vocal mic, where Cunningham notes it’s the most incredible stage microphone in his opinion. “It takes a lot of work to get it right, but the natural top end needs no enhancement. On our three background vocals, I’ve recently switched to the new Shure Nexodyne 8 vocal mics. These are proving to be very capable and respond well to treatment for use in IEMs. I’ve also used these mics with very loud wedge bands to great effect.”
Kelly Jones had been using UE18’s IEMs which are custom made by Ultimate Ears to an older specification that Jones really liked — for 90% of what he hears in his mix, along with stage wedges. “Kelly has a tricky relationship with IEMs as a singer that grew up singing from the room and wedges, so we’ve had to modify the fit to create enough ambience and make the whole thing work alongside his internal resonance. It took some time, but we got there. The wedges are a single stereo pair of d&b M4’s which are fed exclusively with vocal and reverb, which is very bright and normally ‘tuned’ daily to try and match up what is coming back from the room to make sure that what he is hearing through his ports in his IEMs is a balanced and detailed signal and not just ‘mud’ from the back of the PA. We just recently switched to the newest Shure ADTQ Digital IEMs. They sound incredible and save me at least 45 minutes a day compared to older systems. There are a few teething problems, but once these are ironed out, I think they are game changing,” Cunningham says. “I am also extremely lucky to work with such a great band and the amazing Dave Roden and Ian Burness, my stage tech, who are my two favorite people in the industry.”
