Sound Image has a storied history with Brooks & Dunn — the duo was their second client when their Nashville office opened in 1994, and their partnership continues to today. Long known for their engaging and rollicking live shows, they upped the ante on the current Neon Moon tour with more eye-popping visuals than typical; but of course, with a total of nine amazing musicians on the stage, like all their other tours, it starts with the audio.
“They are going really big on this tour with production,” says Anthony Shlifka, monitor engineer and crew operations manager. The JBL VTX V25 system in use is at the “fullest extent it can be and blows out every tour I’ve done with them.” The video and lighting are “outrageously cool, a big upgrade, with a massive video wall.” All that technology is designed to recreate the vibe of the humble honky-tonks the duo performed at in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
“This is definitely a big tour for them,” adds system engineer Tim “Ziggy” Ziegler, of Brooks & Dunn, who just won their 17th ACM Award for Duo of the Year, topping their all-time record in that category. “They did a couple of reboots throughout their career, and this is their next big reboot. The big video screen and a ton of more lights and automation has required more trussing and cable bridges” to make sure the speakers aren’t obstructing sight lines and everyone in the house can see.
As Sound Image was involved with the creation of the original VerTec boxes, it’s understandable that the company is partial to them. “Since the company was using it a lot right out of the gate, Sound Image has been able to optimize the amplifiers and the presets more than other companies,” Shlifka explains. “I might be boasting a little here, but the VerTec rigs and the V25 rigs that our company puts out consistently sound better than other companies putting out those same rigs.”
Another key factor, he adds, is having Tommy Welch as the FOH engineer. He’s been with Brooks & Dunn almost from the beginning, starting as a fly technician hanging the original proprietary G5 rigs for a long time in arenas and stadiums before becoming an early adopter of VerTecs. “So Tommy himself has a long-standing relationship with the JBL line array box, and he specifically is comfortable with that brand and style of box.”
The current tour takes on a couple of different facets: It started with some festival dates, evolved into the full-scale production of the Neon Moon tour, which kicked off mid-March, and then winds back to festivals and some shows supporting Jason Aldean and Morgan Wallen. It is finishing up in October with the Country Calling festival in Ocean City, MD.
At FOH: Tommy Welch
Tommy Welch started in the business as a kid: “I was humping gear for my dad as soon as I could lift a piece of gear.” His parents had the “Don K Trio” (for Don and Kathleen Welch), which played standards, polkas, etc., for supper clubs, weddings, and events in the Grand Rapids, MI, where he grew up. (He still has their original PA — a Kustom K-100.) His siblings played and sang as well as many other musicians rehearsing, so “there was always music in the house.” He himself played bass and then switched to drums.
He would play in a rock band, and also for a couple of club acts. He admits he wasn’t that good, but he did know sound (how could he not?), and when he heard good musicians sounding terrible, he was inclined to go over to the board and “fix it.” He took it upon himself to compile his own PA, and while still a teenager he started running sound for a hot regional band called Basic English, mixing on 24 channel Peavey Mark III. He got that gig through the local music store, Farrow’s Music, whose Ray La-Moine provided mixing tips and connected him to one of his first real pro audio experiences. Welch would also attend the occasional seminar, and by 1982, he was a full-time sound engineer. It was a meager $125 a week or so, “but you got all the drinks and girls you wanted.”
Welch moved up to bigger acts and clubs, always “fixing” the sound. “A band called Kashmir played locally, and they had a friend trying to do their sound, and it was awful. I told them we got to fix it — I was just one of those kinds of guys.” They invited him on their school bus, and he started touring rock clubs throughout the South and Midwest.
At 24, he moved up to working with Sawyer Brown, a country act that was launched on Star Search. There he started a friendship with engineer John Girton. “He really taught me a lot and had good connections having worked for Waylon Jennings, Randy Travis, and others.” Through Girton, he got on with Brooks & Dunn at the very beginning — 1991. “I was patching cables, doing whatever was needed audio-wise, and I took it all seriously.”
Work with Nashville sound companies, including Sound Image, happened as well. By 2001, he was mixing FOH for Brooks & Dunn. When the duo parted in 2010, he bounced back and forth mixing for the two, though he mostly worked for Dunn. Then Welch took a five-year break from the road, but after a personal call from Dunn asking him back, he returned just prior to the pandemic and has stayed with them since.
Welch is driving the Avid Venue S6L-32D console — “my console of choice would be my Midas XL4 analog, but I don’t think there’s anybody carrying analog any more, except maybe Chris Stapleton’s engineer,” he says, referrig to Arpad Sayko. He supplements that with Waves’ SoundGrid expansion card; otherwise the sole piece of outboard gear is his Eventide H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer. He’s managing between 38 and 48 inputs for the live show. “My rig is stereo, but I usually run mono — I don’t pan, I’m old school. I want everything to come out of every damn speaker and go everywhere, so everybody hears the same thing around the whole arena.”
The wireless mic system is Shure Axient, and mics used include Shure SM58, SM57, Beta 91A, and KSM8s; Telefunken M80 and M81; Audio-Technica AT4050 and AE3000; and Sennheiser e 902. “We were using the smaller clip-ons for the toms, and one time we tried the 902s, and it was like ‘holy sh*t — take those clip mics and dump them in the garbage.’” He has a 902 on the kick as well. Dunn sings into the Telefunken and Brooks is on the 58. The direct box of choice is Radial JDI.
Welch’s approach to his job to first make sure the rig works, making sure it’s in phase and doing everything he wants it to do. He walks the room, listening for phase issues. “I have a weird ear, and a real keen sense for phase,” he says. “I was fixing PAs for a longtime, and I can figure out if a speaker is out of phase in this cluster or that. I can tell when a system is fighting itself.”
At Monitors: Anthony Shlifka
Monitor engineer Anthony Shlifka’s father is an audio engineer and is still working today in Chicago. So naturally, as he was growing up, he got work with regional audio companies. “That kept me busy through my 20s, when on a whim I moved to Nashville,” he says. “Once there, I saw Sound Image had an opening.” With Everett Lybolt, Sound Image GM, as a mentor, within a couple of years he was on the move. Then one day in 2017, Lybolt asked, “Do you want to run monitors for Brooks & Dunn?” Shlifka jokingly responded “Who?” and landed the job.
Shlifka says that working with Brooks & Dunn is relatively easy. “Basically, they want to work with guys who are level-headed, know audio, and have the knowledge of their day-to-day operation,” he says. “They are relaxed, down-to-earth gentlemen who just want people they can trust to handle all the technical aspects of a show without their direct involvement.”
The nine musicians are all in-ear, but there are five boxes spotted on the stage. “For wedges, we’re using Sound Image’s proprietary MA 1x15Ms, and Ronnie, Kix, and the drummer [Trey Gray] get those,” he says. “And Ronnie and Kix also like side fills.” The in-ears are a mix of Ultimate Ears and JH Audio’s; Dunn likes the Ultimate Ear LIVE, while Brooks prefers JH’s Roxannes. The rest of the band is a mix of UEs and JHs.
Shlifka mixes on “Eleanor” — the affectionate moniker for his Avid Venue S6L. And Elenor provides him everything he needs; no outboard gear need apply. “Kix and Ronnie just need a good, round sound, and I found that all the plug-ins available on the S6L do the job.”
As Brooks and Dunn are experienced professionals who have surrounded themselves likewise, the nightly challenges for Shlifka, equally experienced, are minimal. “It’s just a matter of who has priority. Obviously, I focus on [Brooks and Dunn] first, and everybody else knows to wait and are super polite and easygoing about it all. So, the biggest challenge with all those people on stage is dealing with both side-fills and IEMs and mixing both at the exact same time.”
What he provides in the on-stage monitors and what goes into the IEMS is different. “The side fills are VTX V25s, a large format stacked on a sub, so with that I’m literally blanketing that stage with something similar to the FOH mix.” There’s left-to-right pan so the stage sounds natural. “Because my guys are old school, suddenly pulling one of their [IEMs] out of an ear is normal operating procedure, no matter how often we talk about it!” he laughs. “But I get it — sometimes they just need to feel the response from the crowd.” (And at the St. Louis show FRONT of HOUSE witnessed, both did pull them out frequently.) The side fills and wedges provide one more layer of control, which he needs. “I will have this really great in-ear mix going, but now all of a sudden it just went [out the window] because they pulled one side of it out. But fortunately, I have another layer of protection, which are these ridiculous flamethrowing side fills and wedges, where I try to recreate that in-ear mix.”
But with caveats. “The ear mixes are always going to be different in the sense that their vocals are going to be loud, more pristine, since there is not a feedback potential. There’s going to be click, a vocal guide, and other audio aspects that just aren’t in the wedges and side fills.”
System Designer/Engineer: Tim Ziegler
“I quickly learned that the best FOH engineers were system engineers first,” says Tim “Ziggy” Ziegler, system designer/engineer and crew chief. “So that was my model. My goal is to be the best system tech first before I move through all the steps to the FOH role.” After he designed the system and ran the first part of this tour, he had to leave to take care of Keith Urban. (Will Foley has filled in for the remaining shows.)
Ziegler grew up in the Atlantic City area, and the music fan was drawn to live events early on. “When I was 13, I originally wanted to do lighting, but then I found out I liked audio more and started learning that.” His first experience was at his church, and then did work at the regional backline company, ACIR. Ten years ago, he moved to Nashville, where he got a job first Blackhawk Audio and then Sound Image. “That’s when I started doing real production, real audio.” Acts he’s worked with include Kendrick Lamar, Billie Eilish and Lionel Richie, among others. One-offs aside, this is his first tour with Brooks & Dunn.
He says that if you understand the system, know how the room is affecting it, you can understand and fix a problem and optimize the system. Then it almost makes the FOH job easy. “You don’t want a situation where it’s all just a boomy mess and make the engineer try to fix that with their mix.” On using the older JBL VTX, he says, “it’s still a great-sounding system,” and it’s providing the FOH engineer what he wants. “Tommy [Welch] likes the low end of the VTX S28s, and likes them in the air, so you can get that solid rock punch.”
But it comes with the caveats of being an older system, like older software and an older way to process everything with Riedel’s RockNet networking protocol. To make it work well, he leans on DirectOut’s Prodigy.MX to matrix mix all the openers, pink noise, house music, test tracks, and such, to a full Drive mix which can be bussed out over Dante, AES or Analog, etc. “I also have a mix matrix out to handle all the video returns and sends to directly interface with them. I currently use the AES outs (AES4.SRC.IO cards) to the RockNet and then Analog outs (MIC8.LINE.IO cards) as the backup.”
Ziegler also has outputs for festival days. “I have EQ and time align functions to handle full system tuning on my drive outputs in the Prodigy.” Using JBL’s Performance Manager software, he deals with gain shading the boxes as well as FIRs and IIRs filters to handle level control and consistence frequency response to the back of the room. This is also used up front so the front fills and mains remain even and balanced, providing coverage up to the front of the stage.
The setup in the arena and stadiums is mostly 180 degrees for seating, though it can go up to needing a 240-degree hang, which means extra care is needed to make sure all those audience members can see. “We need to make sure it’s all clean and looks good.” They keep extra VTX boxes in the truck in case they decide to open it more — a decision they often make the day of any given show. This involves some spur-of-the-moment configuration to accomplish what Ziegler needs to do to make it work, especially for people who bought those side seats that day. “I’m predicting if we can cover those seats, and it’s really a challenge as I can’t tell necessarily the horizontal coverage, so I end up putting a protractor on the ground,” making the call for either three or four hangs.
Overall, he says, it’s pretty straightforward for a day’s work. “There are not really any other challenges than trying to load in all the trucks at the same time. The production side of things is a challenge, as we have ramps that go off the side stage left and right to get the opening acts on and off, and so where we’re placing our amps and cables is a big factor in how we deploy the system that day.”
‘The Whole Crew is Great’
Ziegler adds that the crew is really crushing it. “As a crew chief, I try to encourage a team mentality and love to show appreciation and support any time I can. And of course, Tommy is great, super chill.” He adds that like any tour, there are nuances to the FOH engineer’s preferences, and “once you figure those out, it’s great.”
Welch agrees on Ziegler’s assessment of the crew, starting with Ziegler, who he’s sorry he got pulled from the tour (“It’s like I just lost my cat”). He adds: “Keeping a FOH audio tech is a challenge because the tour is so sporadic. But overall, the crew is great — the backline people are amazing. I wouldn’t be anywhere without them.”
Getting back to that pre-Covid phone call from Dunn, Welch is put on the spot and asked why the team felt it was so important for him to return to the chair behind FOH. “I think it’s my work ethic,” he says after a pause. “And I come up with good ideas, both technically and musically, as I throw out my thoughts on arrangements that might make the songs sound better. And a lot of times, the band guys do not listen to all the members in the mix, and it can get a little weird. I also tell the hard truths that nobody else will, and I think artists like that.” Noting that some think artists want to be surrounded by a lot of brown-nosers, “many don’t. I look at a guy and tell them something from the heart. I have passion, and I love things to sound good.”
Crew
- Sound Company: Sound Image
- Production Manager: Jay Schwartz
- Tour Manager: Jake LaGrone
- Asst. Tour Manager: Melanie Robertson
- FOH Engineer: Tommy Welch
- Monitor Engineer: Anthony Shlifka
- System Designer/SystemEngineer, Crew Chief: Tim “Ziggy” Ziegler
- System Engineer (2nd Half of Tour): Will Foley
- Monitor System Tech: Parker Guthrie
- Stage Patch and PA Technician: Kimberly Sorbello
- PA Technicians: Dani Sivley, Trevor Jansen
Gear
- 2 Avid Venue S6L-32D
- 1 Eventide H3000 Harmonizer
- 16 Channels of Shure PSM 1000
- 18 Channels of Shure Axient Digital
- 1 Waves Titan Server
- 10 Sound Image MA 1×15 Monitor Wedges
- 64 JBL VTX V25-II Line Arrays
- 16 JBL VTX V25 VTC
- 8 JBLV VTX V20
- 2 JBL VTX V20 VTC
- 32 JBL VTX A8
- 6 JBL VTX A8 VT
- 24 JBL VTX S28
- 10 JBL VTX V28 VTC
- 1 VUE VLBA-112 Subwoofer
