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XTA Gives Kylie a Squeeze
Christopher Pyne has been mixing Ms Minogue’s FOH sound for nine years. "I have the band, three backing singers and a full set of orchestral samples, all at the same time in some parts of the show. To keep Kylie's voice above all this and keep things smooth is quite a challenge,” he explains.
“Kylie’s vocal has real presence in the 800Hz to 3KHz range, which is where the ear can be particularly sensitive. There are a couple of frequencies I try to keep in check which really helps me keep her vocal clear within the mix, and the way I do this is with XTA's multi-band D2 Dynamic EQ.
“The unit has Listen buttons on each band, so not only can I pick any frequency to work on, I can effectively solo just that band and adjust it to deliver exactly the extra compression I sometimes need. Not all the time, just when I need to keep it extra smooth.”
A Martin Audio line array is on the tour, managed by significant numbers of XTA DP226s, with complete wireless control from System Tech Tony Szabo’s Fujitsu tablet.
“We have a rack of 10 XTA DP226 at the stage purely for crossovers,” explains Szabo. “Each section of the Martin W8L line array system is controlled separately with the XTAs and we split the rig up quite a lot, which gives us much more control or what we call granularity. This includes the subs and, because I don’t want to turn the speakers down. I steer them by using delay so I can get some of the signal back to the ground. I find it far more efficient to delay steer instead of gain shade the sub array.”
Side hangs are a typical Martin setup with one DDP226 managing a complete side hang. “On the ground we have a total of six front fill clusters,” continues Szabo. “I have them on totally separate zones so we can time align them perfectly with the rest of the PA.
“At front of house we have another bunch of XTAs which are used for overall system EQ and delay for time aligning, so that the crossovers down at stage can simply crossover. The Meyer SIM3 system also gets to tap in after the system EQ, but before the loudspeaker crossover. The wireless tablet system that we have is hooked up at front of house, but the DP226s at the stage are also in the network, so we can tweak them if we need to. But it’s quite rare for us to have to do that.”
Commenting on the overall production, Pyne adds: “With this system people can actually appreciate the fact that Kylie can sing really well. We’re constantly being told ‘I couldn’t believe how good that was’. That’s kind of the pinnacle of it for me, it’s a simple thing but it’s a great thing.”
In picture: Tony Szabo (left) with Christopher Pyne.
16th May 2005
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