HomerSimpson
Apr 16 2011, 01:04 AM
Linkin Park is a band that delivers—onstage,
in the studio and just a few days
post-gig. For the latter, front-of-house engineer
Ken “Pooch” Van Druten and programming/
playback engineer/keyboard
tech Dylan Ely provide a fully mixed and
mastered, pro-quality live album within
two to three days after each performance.
With a purchased ticket, each fan is offered
a high-quality download of the live
recording; distribution of the download is
provided by Basecamp Productions.
“We have been releasing shows after
the fact for about four years now,”
Van Druten explains. “Dylan and I have
mixed approximately 400 shows at this
point. We were given the opportunity to
mix a DVD release, Live at Milton Keynes,
which was nominated for a Grammy
[Best Hard Rock Performance, 2010]. It
is one of the most fulfi lling duties I have
while working with Linkin Park. It is nice
to know that any time you hear something
that Linkin Park has done live, it is
a mix that Dylan and I have done—minus
a few things that their recording engineer,
Ethan Mates, has done.”
For the live recordings, Van Druten
and Ely spend about 24 work-hours per
show prior to the release. As the band
(Brad Delson, guitar; Chester Bennington,
vocals; Joe Hahn, turntablist; Mike
Shinoda, vocals; Phoenix, bass; and Rob
Bourdon, drums) has mandated that
they want “record-quality bootleg” recordings,
Van Druten says that most of
his and Ely’s time is spent shaping the
sound of what is coming off stage with
the sound of the actual room and making
that work—creating a sonic landscape
with the band’s full, rich sound with loud
crowd response.
“Basically, there is a template that
we have worked on now for about four
years,” Van Druten says. “We insert that
as a starting point and work from there.
Dylan does most of the editing, I do the
mixing and then it goes back to Dylan for
more editing and mastering.”
For the recordings, Van Druten uses
the HD X cards from his Avid D-Show
Profi le (96-input with fi ve DSP cards) at
FOH to record directly to Pro Tools HD at
24-bit/48 kHz (78 inputs total). The day after
the gig, the two take the recording and
import it into that template, which has inserts,
sends and routing already set up.
They then time-align the audience mics with the
close mics (Audio-Technica models), edit any major
mistakes and do some cleanup on tracks that
aren’t being used for certain songs. “We then mix
the cleanup tracks, treating them as a complete
show, with no time in-between songs or cutting out
encores,” Ely says. “The idea is to mix the show for
the fan just as he or she would have heard it if they
were attending the show. During the mix process,
notes are made about any mistakes, then they’re
addressed and fi xed, and then it gets mastered.
All songs are matched level- and EQ-wise within
that show, as well as being compared and matched
with previous shows. We then print as a 24-bit/48k
WAV fi le.” That fi le is then converted to 320kbps
MP3 fi les and uploaded to the Basecamp site via
the company’s proprietary drag-and-drop software.
“The whole process for a 90-minute show takes
about 16 hours of post-production: a day of editing
and a day of mixing,” Ely adds.
Back to the Show
To re-create much of the same electronic-rock fusion
created in the studio to the live performance
arena, Van Druten (who has been mixing for the
band for the past fi ve years) says his job “is to reproduce
what is coming from the stage in a way that
the audience hears every instrument and vocal,”
Van Druten says. “Nowadays, it’s a bit more complicated.
With technology, I am able to insert my
own creativity into the mix to provide the audience
with a record-quality listen.” This includes relying
on choice plug-ins such as those from Waves, URS
and McDSP. He taps into the Waves MetaFlanger
for some intense vocal eff ects on the song “The
Catalyst” (off of their latest release, A Thousand
Suns). In his outboard rack are such pieces as an
Apogee Big Ben word clock and M-Audio ProFire
2626 FireWire interface to record the 2-mix and audience
mics to a MacBook Pro. “I have a Pro Tools
HD4 Macintosh rig with an [Avid] Expansion chassis
for the ability to record 96 inputs, one for one,”
he adds, “a Waves Maxx BCL for recording of the
2-mix to eliminate some DSP usage, and an Alesis
ML9600 hard disk recorder/CD burner for fastturnaround
of recorded stuff , plus playback.
“The last few years have been completely freeing
because the technology allows me to reproduce
all of the eff ects and sounds that were used
when the band made the recording that people
know and love,” Van Druten continues. “I have
been a musician all my life—specifi cally, a bass
player. I believe that the rhythm section is the key
to every mix. I think of a mix as a houseplant: The
drums and bass are the roots; the keys, vocals, guitars,
et cetera, are the stems, leaves and fl owers. It
is not possible to have the stems, leaves and fl owers
without the solid, sturdy root system.”
All mics onstage are Audio-Technica (the
band endorses the company), except for the RF
and wired vocal mics, which are Sennheiser 865
Series. “My favorite microphones for guitars and
basses—stringed instruments, in general—are
the large-diaphragm Audio-Technica mics. I use
the AT4050 and the AT4047 on all guitars. We have
86 inputs and about 60 of those are open microphones,
so it’s really necessary to make the right
mic placement and choices.”
Pumping the blistering sets to the audience is
an Adamson Y-Axis system, with Van Druten noting
the 18-inch speakers in the main array and 21-
inch speakers in the subs as key to this band. “Both
couple very nicely to reproduce low-mid to sub information
that other P.A.s just can’t do,” he says,
adding that he has three Dolby Lake processors
for matrixing and zoning. In addition, he relies on
systems engineer Chris “Cookie” Hoff and Evan
McElhinney, who spend much of their time making
sure that every seat in the house sounds the
same and is covered. “I count on them greatly, and
they are the best in the business,” Van Druten says.
Monitor engineer Kevin “Tater” McCarthy is
also in constant contact with Hoff at the beginning
of the tour to make sure his mixes were dialed in
as the stage is diamond-shaped and the band plays
downstage of the P.A. for most of the show. He is
manning a Yamaha PM5DRH (the same model
as when Mix caught up with this Linkin Park crew
back in 2008) with a DSP5D (PM5D-EX system);
outboard is all done via Waves SoundGrid multirack
system. “I’m using all 24 mix outs, all eight
matrices and the stereo out B,” McCarthy says.
“I also use two outputs on the DSP5D. There are
eight sidefi ll/wedge mixes, six IEM stereo mixes
and a mono ear mix; the rest are eff ects and shakers.”
The entire band except guitarist Delson are
on JH Audio JH-16 ear monitors. The wedges (12
Adamson M12 underhung and two M12s onstage)
and SX18s sidefi lls are for Delson, who wears generic
foam earplugs with Peltor gun muff s over
them. Power is via Lab.Gruppen PLM10000 amps.
In 2008, McCarthy was mixing from underneath
a rolling stage. This time out, he’s located at
upstage-center, completely behind the band, and
using spy cams to keep track of what’s happening
out front. “I am in constant contact with the band
if they need something,” McCarthy says. “Plus,
my assistant, Paul “Pablo” White, is an extra set ofeyes and ears for me. Linkin Park and production
manager Jim Digby are wonderful to work for and
they give me all the tools I need for my job.”
Van Druten echoes McCarthy’s sentiments:
“Truly, we are family on this tour. Some of the
people here I have known for 20 years. When you
are away from your ‘real’ family, it is really nice to
know that your ‘tour family’ is always there for
you. I couldn’t be happier with the situation. Great
band, awesome crew—what’s not to love?”
Program Me
Programming and playback are heavily
involved in any Linkin Park adventure—be
it in the studio or live. After engineer Dylan
Ely receives the full album multitrack and the
band determines which parts will be played
live, he will make stems of those elements
from the album that need to be programmed.
He uses two Mac laptops (one is a redundant
system) running Pro Tools M-Powered
playing back all of the stems. The redundant
machine is synched to the main machine
via MTC, and the backup machine is set to
Jam Sync the incoming MTC, “so if the main
computer stops, loses power, et cetera, the
backup machine will run infi nitely at the same
rate as it was when it lost timecode.”
Ely breaks down the eight tracks that
comprise the stems:
Track 1: typically any low-frequency material,
like 808s or maybe the low end of a drum
loop that has the high frequency fi ltered off .
Track 2: usually any type of mono drum loop
element that cannot be played live by the
drummer.
Tracks 3 and 4: used for any type of sound
that has to be stereo, typically a synth or
string pad–type sound or a drum loop that is
full-frequency with a stereo element to it.
Track 5: any high-end arpeggiated-type synth
or a swell.
Track 6: click track that only is going to the
bandmembers’ ears onstage.
Track 7: a reference track or a keyboard
and/or vocal only heard in the singers’
ears onstage as a pitch reference. Also
sometimes a click to “automate” a section
for a certain member in their ears, only for a
cue or reference.
Track 8: SMPTE. Tmecode is used to run/
sync the lights and video during the show.
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letdownagain
Apr 17 2011, 09:02 PM
Interesting article. They gave away the secret about Brad's headphones, though!
