Mix Magazine, January 1995
Counting Crows Come Home
by Jeff Forlenza
Riding
a wave of success from their debut album (August and Everything After
on Geffen), the Counting Crows returned to their old stomping grounds
to play a sold-out show at Berkeley's Greek Theater recently, We spoke
with FOH engineer Rob Killenberger about touring with the "Best
New Band in the Land," and he shared some technical tips for making
sure the Crows' shows fly every night.
Killenberger
mixes front-of-house from a 60-input Yamaha PM4000, while monitor engineer
Graham "Hutch" Hutchinson uses a Ramsa WR-S840 console for monitor mixes.
On the Crows' summer tour, Fire-house Productions (Brooklyn, N.Y.) provided
full production, and Delicate Productions (Camarillo, Calif.) supplied
stacks and racks. For the Berkeley show, Delicate provided the entire
audio system except in-ear monitoring, which came from Fire-house. The
P.A. was a Martin system including 24 F2B bass cabinets (two 15-inch
drivers), eight F2M mid cabinets (three 12-inch), eight F2H mid-high
cabinets (two 2-inch and three l-inch), eight F2C "combi- cabinets (12-inch,
2-inch and l-inch) and 12 BSX sub-bass cabinets (two 18-inch). All told,
there were 30 cabinets stacked on each side of the stage.
A big part of the Crows concert productions involves Adam Duritz' monitor mix and vocal sound. "He's very particular," Killenberger says of the lead singer. "He wants to hear everything precisely, We have the Radio Station [ear monitors] for Adam. For a while, we had just a pair of wedges and it was okay. But every now and then, he'd blow out his voice because the stage volume was loud, and he'd be having a hard time hearing his own voice, Since we got the ear monitors, he hasn't lost his voice from performing, and he hears his voice exactly as he wants to hear it. We put a Summit tube EQ on his channel to EQ his monitor mix. He's having a great time with the in-ear monitors. You can tell there's more emotion in his performance because he doesn't have to search for his sound. We'll be getting other bandmembers on ear monitors very soon."
Adam Duritz vocal style--along with his lyrics-- are the band's most-recognizable trademarks, and Killenberger strives to convey the emotional nuances of Duritz' voice with high-quality mics. "We were using the Beyer TGX-580, and the sound was great; it was a very warm and rich mic," Killenberger explains. "Adam really liked the way that mic sounded. But they weren't reliable with the style of vocals that Adam has. He puts a lot of energy into his vocals, and, because of that, he's constantly spraying into the microphone, Excessive moisture gets into the mic, and that would weigh down the diaphragm. So we had to switch over to a Shure Beta 87, which has a very natural sound to it: I think it's one of the most transparent-sounding vocal mics on the market. The Beta 87, being a condenser mic, doesn't have as much warmth as the Beyer, but it's much more reli-able. We did an outdoor show opening for the Rolling Stones at Giants Stadium [East Rutherford, N.J.] with this mic in a heavy downpour. Adam and the band were drenched, but the mic still sounded great."
As far as processing Duritz's vocals, Killenberger uses a "Vari-curve on his channel [to EQ it]. His insert goes into a BSS 901 and then into a BSS 402 compressor, and then out of that into the Vari-curve; " he says. "Basically, on the 901 I'm compressing-at a medium bandwidth-around the area of 500 to 600 cycles and 2.5k to 3k. I try to make his vocal as smooth as I can. Same thing with the guitars-I don't like the guitar to sound harsh and piercey."
Killenberger explains more of his miking preferences: "On kick drum are the Shure SM91 and the B&K 4007. That's a great combination. The SM91 sits on the pil-low in the drum pointing back toward the beater head, and the B&K is on a stand about three inches inside the head of the drum, pointing upward away from the 91. Some of the other mics on the drums were a Shure SM57 on snare top, a Beyer 201 on the snare bottom, Shure SM98s on all the rack toms, AKG C-460s on the hi-hat and ride cymbal, and AKG 414s on the overheads.
"We have Sennheiser 409s on all the guitar amps," he continues, "two of which are Matchless amps for Dave Bryson. Dan Vick-ery uses two '67 Fender Vibrolux amps, which are phenomenal-sounding amps. The Vibrolux is a 35-watt, dual-lo-inch combo; it is very well-rounded with a smooth warmth and cut, and is perfect with Dan's musical style. Charlie Gillingham plays a Hammond B-3 with a Leslie 122, and that's just miked with a pair 57s on the top and a Beyer M88 on the bottom. Matt Malley has an Ampeg SVT bass rig, with two 8x10 boxes: I just put a Sennheiser 421 in front of the box and use Countryman DIs on his basses."
For accordion, Killenberger uses a combination of an AKG 408 mic and a Countryman DI. "The accordion has a pickup inside," he explains. "I basically use the pickup and just 'hollow out the middle.' When Charlie plays the introduction to 'Omaha' on the accordion, it sounds very big because the pickup has a great low-end response. However, it doesn't translate the mid and high frequencies accurately. So, I use the mic to sort of 'help out' the pickup. Charlie and I are trying to achieve a bagpipe-sounding accordion for that 'Omaha' intro."
Killenberger gets direction from the band as far as how they want their shows to sound: "Dave Bryson is also a recording engi-neer. He's given me a lot of hints as to how the band should sound and how their shows should feel. He basically said that they don't want it to sound very big. They don't want the drums to be very clicky. The kick drum is not gonna be a snappy kick; it's gonna be more of a round kick drum to couple with the bass. They didn't want a big, clanky top end. Other engineers come up to me after shows and say, 'It sounded pretty good, except I would have had more transient attack on the drums, and I would have put more top-end clarity on the bass.' But that's one thing that the band doesn't want to have. They want more of a lower-mid-definition, 'quarky' kind of bass."
Being the live engineer for a band whose well-known album precedes them is a formidable task for Killenberger. "The band wants to be somewhat reserved, but at the same time I want it to still have the excitement of a concert. I think we reach a happy medium," Killenberger concludes. "Because you still have thousands of cheering fans out there, and they want to see a great rock show. Basically, my job is to make sure everybody on the stage can be heard clearly. I have to be sure that all of the great music happening up there is translated through the sound system to sound as good as it possibly can. I want people to listen to this show and say, 'Wow--what great lyrics, what a great band!'"