Sound Company
House Rigs
Venue
Various (Tour)
Crew
- FOH Engineer: Matt Maly
- Monitor Engineer: Jon Blazek
- Production Manager: Travis Kasperbauer
- Backline (Guitar, Bass, Drum) Techs: Travis Kasperbauer, Sam Cole, Nathan Palm
Gear
FOH
- Console: Avid Profile
- In-console Effects: Waves v9 (MaxxVolume, API2500, CLA-2A, CLA-76, H-Reverb, H-Delay, SSL-Bus Comp, NLS)
- Outboard Rack Effects/plugins: Eventide H90 as vocal FX
MON
- Console: Avid Profile
- In-console Effects: ReVibe, Digidesigns EQ III
- Vocal Mics: Telefunken M80 + M80RF via Shure RF
- IEMs + Receivers & Transmitters: Shure Axient RF (IEM & guitar wireless)
Tour Details
The Go-Go’s, including original members Belinda Carlisle (vocals), Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey (guitars, vocals), Kathy Valentine (bass, vocals) and Gina Schock (drums), recently reconvened for a short run of shows. FOH caught up with engineers Matt Maly (FOH) and Jon Blazek (monitors) to chat about this fun and energetic show. The San Francisco crowd had a great time singing along to all their favorites.
Matt Maly [FOH Engineer] and Monitor Engineer Jon Blazek are both mixing the shows on the Avid Profile. Maly notes he likes the Profile for its ease of use when building a new file, and the native (albeit outdated at this point) use of some plugins. “When given the choice, I opt for a DiGiCo based on the depth of options in the console. DiGiCo have added so much with the last few updates, I can do about 95% of the processing on the console as long as I’ve got Pulse and their Mustard strip/MSE.”
Maly says the band like the mix to be aggressive and sound huge. “With five equal members, the girls need to be a bit polished and processed so as to not leave any of them buried or hidden in the mix. I use a lot of subgroups to sum multiple inputs, but also side chain compress the smallest bit of guitars with C6 via Belinda’s vocal so guitars don’t step on the vocal range. Both guitar rigs are two amps, with a Palmer PDI-09 and Telefunken M81 or M80. The two inputs (mic & DI) on each amp panned aggressively, but not hard L/R instead of phase aligning. I find it gives the guitars a bit more depth than aligning them, while not losing the content on large stages/PA’s.
“My main LR gets a little bit of bus compression via the SSL Bus compressor and saturation via either one of two tape saturation plugins or Waves NLS, before feeding resulting matrices,” Maly continues. “In terms of sub frequency content, I prefer to feed the output via matrix from my LR mix, so as to keep all my outputs in line with latency. I find needing to control overall sub content is necessary for soundcheck as well, as the empty room rumble tends to distract the girls on stage.”
Waves plugins and sometimes a pedalboard of effects is usually what Maly will bring to any show. “First off, with Waves Soundgrid being available on most modern consoles, following shortly behind Waves is usually 4-5 channels of guitar pedals as effects or additional processing. I only need a server in order to have my go-to plugins (PSE, C6, CLA-2A, MaxxVolume, SSL G Channel, SSL compressor, API-2500, NLS, Vitamin, and Kramer Tape Saturation) available on most shows. On this particular show, the only downside of the older Avid console is the lack of compatibility beyond Waves v9, so I lost a few of my favorites. However, with the shortlist of plugins, I’m usually able to have enough processing to shape everything from sources to groups to my LR bus.”
Maly notes that his effects tend to vary from console to console, so he found the most practical and efficient method was a small pedalboard. “For this particular run, I only needed my Eventide H90,” he says, giving a shout out to “fellow cat dad” Patrick at Eventide. “Jane’s live vocal effect request was a somewhat subtle, but wide, slow moving phasing harmonizer into a very lush but short reverb. I saved this as ‘Hush My Darling,’ as that’s the moment in ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ where she sings lead and it tends to shine. In addition to the H90, I have a Death By Audio Rooms for drum reverb, JHS Colour Box for additional distortion, and Earthquaker Aurelius chorus to add a thickness for larger group vocal parts and add a little additional texture to Charlotte’s guitar solos.”
For these theater shows, the band are using house PA systems.
Maly says he appreciates these venues’ newer PA’s for being less forgiving in some ways. “I tend to only utilize SMAART as a backup following listening to the PA and listening to the decay of the room. For this specific run, with the loud guitars on stage, I’ll find myself using playback music or a virtual soundcheck to see how the room reflects the guitars and EQ to lower the energy in those areas. After that, I often further EQ the PA to match what I know will take off from the wandering M80 in Belinda’s hands. Otherwise, I find most current PA’s have been set up reasonably well, with the only wildcards being the weather or sub placement/setup.”
Monitor engineer Jon Blazek’s first time mixing The Go-Go’s was on their 2016 tour. “My initial briefing was that the ‘punk rock’ aesthetic was alive and well, and that the band like it loud! All the vocal mics are turned way up, and I keep about 10% on tap in case I need to adjust during the show.” Both guitarists Jane Wiedlin on SL and Charlotte Caffey on SR, who are next to the side fills, like to have a healthy amount of kick and snare, so that ends up carrying across the whole stage. “Kathy [Valentine] really wants to hear her bass the same way it’s coming from her amp, so we take some time to get that right each day,” Blazek says.
“For the Go-Go’s, I’m only using a few instances of reverb per show – most importantly, a short plate for Belinda Carlisle’s main reverb, which goes to her IEM’s,” Blazek continues. “I’ve carried a Strymon Big Sky in the past, but I’m usually happy enough with on-board effects after some tweaking and EQ. On top of that I’ve got a handful of Gates and a few compressors in use, but 99% of the time I’m looking to the channel strip for those.”
When Blazek joined, the band already had a solid input list with mics and DI’s that he was happy to work with. “We’ve been using the Telefunken M80’s on vocals. I enjoy their predictability when it comes to feedback and getting them loud. The band was also using Palmer PDI09’s in conjunction with a mic on all the guitar amps. We have a lot of guitars in the wedges and the Palmers are impactful and help cut down on bleed. We occasionally bring out a few new pieces, but for the most part we keep a traditional approach to the sound.”
More photos by Steve Jennings:
