|
|
|
|
|
Photos too small? Click on photos, screenshots and diagrams in articles to open a Larger View gallery. | Dave Stewart & Barbara Gaskin on tourBig In JapanPublished in PM November 2009  Printer-friendly versionTechnique : Touring Keyboardist Dave Stewart and vocalist Barbara Gaskin topped the charts in 1981 with ‘It’s My Party’, and have been working together ever since. Dave describes what’s involved in taking their studio-based project on the road.  Photo: Harumi Maezawa I first met Barbara in 1969. I’d always loved her voice and after getting lucky with our first single, ‘It’s My Party’, it was a natural progression to go on working together as a duo. My inclination was to concentrate on recording, but given our performing backgrounds (we had both started playing in bands as soon as we left school) it was inevitable that we’d turn our hands to playing live at some point. Taking our heavily-overdubbed music on the road was a challenge — for our first UK gig in 1983, we put together a seven-piece band including three keyboardists, a drummer, a guitarist and a backing singer. It proved impractical to maintain a group of that size, so in 1990 we downsized to a trio and played our first American tour with Barbara on vocals, myself on keyboards and Andy Reynolds on guitar. At that time we relied entirely on live sequencing to play our live backing tracks. A Roland MC500 hardware sequencer triggered racks of MIDI modules and samplers, while an E-mu SP-1200 cranked out the beats. It was a complicated rig and when we travelled overseas the air freight and hire costs were prohibitive. Things reached a head when we played at Sony’s TLG club in Tokyo around the time of the September 11th attacks. We had to hire the venue for an extra day simply to set up our gear, and by the time we’d finished, the floor of the stage round the back of the racks was inches deep in cables. Remembering the days when one could sling the gear in the back of a Ford Transit, bomb up the M1, set up in under an hour and play a gig after a 15-minute soundcheck, I figured it was time for a change. Live multitrack playback  Air freight restrictions and costs have led to the abandonment of MIDI modules and samplers in favour of playback from an Alesis HD24 hard-disk multitrack. Photo: Ted Hayton/Andy Reynolds After the 2001 Tokyo trip I decided to get rid of all the on-stage MIDI modules and samplers and replace them with a playback system. A CD backing track wasn’t going to work; we needed a proper multitrack live mix that could be tailored to the acoustics of the venue, and that required a 24-track playback system with individual outputs. I didn’t fancy relying on a laptop — given the unpredictable behaviour of the average computer, I’d rather take my chances with live musicians of the Pete Doherty and Keith Moon variety. (At least when they crash and fall over they do it for a reason.) I looked around for a suitable multitrack hard-disk recorder. Most models had only stereo outputs, but Gavin Harrison (who played with us in Tokyo in 2001) suggested a Yamaha AW2816 workstation — but although it can play back 16 audio tracks, it’s limited to 14 individual outputs. For a while the Mackie HDR 24/96 looked a good bet, as Andy had bought one for his studio and found it to be a great, reliable machine. However, by the time our next batch of gigs came around Mackie were no longer manufacturing it. The problem was finally solved in 2002 when Alesis brought out the ADAT HD24 hard-disk recorder. Twenty-four channels of digital audio with individual outputs, twin removable standard (AKA cheap) IDE hard drives and tape recorder-like controls for under a grand seemed a good deal to me. So far the machine has proved absolutely perfect for us — compact, rock solid and easy to use. The only errors have been of the human kind, which I’ll come to later! Transfer window  Photo: Harumi Maezawa Our spring 2009 Tokyo gigs were timed to coincide with the release of our new album Green And Blue, and as soon as the album was mastered we immediately started preparations for the concerts. We wanted to perform a selection of songs from the new CD, plus a few older tunes (some of which we’d played live before), and some new un-recorded pieces. Since the album was all recorded in Logic it was a fairly simple matter to digitally transfer the backing tracks of those songs onto the Alesis HD-24, using the three eight-way ADAT optical outputs on my MOTU 2408 MkII soundcard. I did the transfers by creating 12 stereo buses in Logic and routing the overdubs to the appropriate buses, panning mono tracks (such as the bass drum) hard left or right to the desired destination track. Transferring the older, pre-Logic songs to the HD-24 was a little more complicated. I had to fire up the original MC500 and SP-1200 sequences, reinstate the patch and sample data (entailing much rummaging about in floppy-disk boxes) and painstakingly record each MIDI part one at a time — a very time-consuming procedure. The hardest song to recreate was an old B-side called ‘Rich For A Day’. For that I had to go back to the original 24-track tape and use FX Rentals’ tape baking and transfer facilities to copy the audio into Logic — a bit of a hassle, but I felt it was worth it to give this song (a favourite of mine) a live airing! One disadvantage of a multitrack recorder with no internal mixing facilities is that levels can’t be changed after recording. With audio software or a workstation you can alter the mix, so if you get to the first gig and find that a tambourine loop is too loud, you can pull it down a few dB and re-save the song. That option wasn’t available with the HD-24, so I did my best to record the audio in such a way that each backing track sounded good with flat faders, leaving our sound engineer to concentrate on the details of mixing our live keyboard, guitar and vocal performances. While it was relatively easy to balance individual instruments within a piece, it proved harder to maintain a consistent volume level from song to song. One ballad — ‘This Wind Blows Everywhere’ — posed particular problems. Though fairly sparse, the rather bassy backing sounded a bit overwhelming, and that was causing Barbara problems so I had to reduce the overall level considerably until the backing track felt comfortable and ‘sat’ with the other songs. Level changes of this kind meant I had to go back and completely re-record the song from Logic into the HD-24, but that wasn’t too painful. Stage equipment and monitoring  Photo: Harumi Maezawa Organising the rest of the live equipment was relatively straightforward. Korg, Roland and two Japanese musician friends kindly agreed to lend me keyboards, thereby saving us a lot of money in air freight and hire costs. Our promoter Tom Ohsawa rented an Alesis HD-24, some backline and on-stage mixers for our monitoring. In the end all we had to bring from the UK were two hard drives, Barbara’s headphone amp belt-pack, Andy’s guitar and a Pod XT Live unit, generously lent to us by Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson. This was a distinct improvement on our last Japanese trip, when we freighted several heavy flightcased items (including my battered Prophet V synth) to Tokyo and back. We asked for self-powered Mackie SRM450 backline speakers, and hired the same make for rehearsals in the UK so we could get used to them. I’ve had a few brushes with muddy-sounding keyboard cabs in the past, but these Mackie speakers sounded good to me, producing a nice clear sound that didn’t sound radically different from my studio monitors. Since I rely on stereo backline to hear myself and the backing tracks, sound quality is an important issue — I find it almost impossible to enjoy a gig if the sound isn’t right. The HD24 sat on stage with us and was operated by Andy. Tracks 1-16 were sent directly to front-of-house via DI boxes, and the other eight tracks were reserved for on-stage monitor mixes, clicks and cues. I created a full stereo mix, keyboards-only sub-mix, rhythm sub-mix and a mono click-and-cues track for each song. While I was happy to play along to the stereo mix, the two sub-mixes gave Barbara and Andy the option of turning up the rhythm parts in certain sections. We split the backline speakers into two pairs — Andy had the left-channel guitar and keyboard cabs while I got the right-channel pair. SRM450’s have a volume knob on the back, enabling the two of us to set our own independent keyboard and guitar backline levels. I ran my keyboards, playback mixes and click track through an on-stage Mackie 2408 mixer that has a very handy three-way split for each of its eight bus outputs on the back panel. That made it easy to send the mixes and click out to Barb and Andy, who had their own smaller on-stage Mackie mixers feeding their in-ear monitors. Barb also uses a wedge for her vocals as a backup for the in-ear monitoring. Andy used a combination of in-ears and backline for his guitar, while I relied mainly on the backline, but occasionally grabbed an earpiece to hear count-ins and cues. I also had my own wedge monitor for Barbara’s vocals. Since our live mix is too complicated to entrust to a stranger, we asked our mate Ted Hayton (who engineered many of our ‘80s and ‘90s recordings) to accompany us on the trip. Ted’s mission was to balance 16 playback channels with 13 live feeds consisting of my keyboards, Andy’s guitar and three vocal mics, plus outboard effects from the house system. Relying on backline and earpieces to hear ourselves meant that we needed only vocals in our wedge monitors, which Ted was able to organise from the main board. Dave’s Diary  Dave Stewart’s keyboard rig:(top left) Korg 01/WFD and Korg T3, (right, from top) Korg Trinity, Yamaha DX7 and Roland Fantom G6. Photo: Ted Hayton Day one  Vocalist Barbara Gaskin’s in ear monitor mix is under her own control, via a Mackie 1402 VLZ3 mixer, receiving separate rhythm and keyboard sub-mixes from Dave Stewart’s on-stage Mackie 2408. Photo: Ted Hayton/Andy Reynolds A nice welcome at the Romantic Moon club in Aoyama, Tokyo. It’s a small venue with a fantastic atmosphere and some of the nicest, most co-operative staff I’ve ever met. Though wiring up the onstage mixers is pretty hairy, the hire company have done a great job in supplying all the cables we asked for, and setting up takes less time than I anticipated. Ted is unflappable as ever and we fiddle around with our onstage volume levels and the soundcheck goes fairly smoothly. Once I’m happy with the balance, I mark the keyboards’ output levels using strips of masking tape before settling into my pre-match routine of gaffa-taping the underside of my sustain pedals to the stage floor — a hobby I recommend to everyone. We’re all aware of the clock ticking down to the fateful moment when the doors open. At that point we flee the stage and hide upstairs in the dressing room until show time. After a while, the chat and banter gradually dies down and a weird concentration overtakes us; visitors to our inner sanctum immediately sense the change in mood, wish us luck, make their excuses and leave. We pull on shirts, check our appearance in mirrors (yep, still there), hum a melody line, pretend to study parts and I calm myself by writing out set lists. It goes quiet. I say a few words, remind the others and myself to enjoy the gig. The club manager sticks his head round the door, gives us the thumbs-up and we filter downstairs to stand in the darkened wings. The music on the PA stops playing. The house lights dim. It’s the gladiator moment, minus the lions. I walk on and feel that strange sense of commingled anxiety and relief, which always seems to accompany the first gig. Anxiety about what might go wrong and relief because after weeks of preparation we’re finally here. It’s a great venue, the audience are a friendly-looking bunch and there’s a sporting chance we’re going to have a good time playing our songs to them. The crowd clap warmly then quickly settle into that deep, reverent, Japanese funereal hush that unnerves me more than massed heckling ever could. I make a short announcement, give Andy the nod, he starts playback and we’re into the first tune, ‘Jupiter Rising’. Having soundchecked a short while ago we don’t need to adjust to the stage sound, and right away I can hear the music is (if I may say so) sounding strong. The acoustics are good and the combination of the pre-recorded rhythm tracks and Andy’s driving guitar is very powerful. It’s good to have Ted here with us; he’s known our material since the early ‘80s and won’t be phased by any peculiar noises emanating from my keyboards. Communication on stage is very good, with a lot of grinning, exaggerated face-pulling and in-jokes to make each other laugh, etc. I can see Andy and Barb are enjoying themselves, we can hear each other, no item of equipment has yet exploded or caught fire, so all I have to do now is play the keyboards — a job I have loved doing since I was 16. There is the minor matter of remembering which f*cking notes to play! Having written and/or arranged all the music I ought to know it backwards, so in rehearsals a couple of weeks ago it came as a shock to realise that, not having played certain tunes for a year or more, I’d forgotten the chords to certain passages. That was a first for me, and Barb and Andy relish the experience of hearing me make ghastly clunkers, cracking up every time I play a wrong chord. (Nice to know I can count on their support.) I get around the problem by using a crib sheet for each song — reading music on stage isn’t great, but at least it keeps me on my toes. I make a dreadful, exposed howler at the end of one sensitive ballad but remember the old showbiz adage and keep smiling. Audiences tend not to notice mistakes, but they’ll very quickly pick up on a pained facial expression or glare. ‘Jupiter Rising’ subsides into its twinkling, floating playout, and with no prompting the lighting engineer instinctively does the right thing and fades the lights. I stand in darkness under the beautiful illuminated moon improvising ethereal flute lines, feeling for a few blissful moments like I’m the only one here. Day two  Though Hayton had prepared to use a Soundcraft K-2 desk for the tour, the venue actually supplied a Midas Venice 320 at the last minute. Photo: Ted Hayton/Andy Reynolds We change the running order for the second night, replacing the manic ‘Rich For A Day’ with a longer, more subdued piece for our second number. During its extended, exploratory instrumental workout, Barbara comes over to my side of the stage and plays a solo on the Roland Fantom G6. She picks her notes very carefully, changes sound several times and leaves big spaces, obviously following Miles Davis’ sage advice to soloists — “Think of a note, then don’t play it.” I enjoy comping chords and bass lines behind her improv. As the section builds to a climax, I hear a cue in my earpiece (another advantage of playback) signalling the start of the next section, where the music gets funkier and Andy and I take over the lead line. Hey, this is fun. A famous English keyboard player is in the audience tonight. I remember the time in 1980 when my bandleader Bill Bruford casually informed me that Oscar Peterson had shown up at one of our Canadian gigs. I spent the evening in a state of liquescent terror and performed with the strength and resolve of a melting marshmallow. I decide that it’s about time I stopped worrying about this kind of stuff. The moment of truth is the evening’s first long keyboard solo, which comes about three tunes in. I dive in, the red mist descends and from that point I’m aware only of steering the patterns of sound pouring out of my keyboard. It’s not so much a case of switching to auto-pilot as just going with the flow, turning off your critical brain and letting the music come through. The approach works and I stop worrying about who is or isn’t in the audience, and after the gig I realise I’ve overcome, at least temporarily, this particular performing difficulty. A beaming Ted comes into the dressing room in the intermission, “Mate, the sound is... soaring!” Although my stage position is to one side and behind the left PA stack, I can hear from the reflected sound that Ted is right, the drums and bass are rocking, and I voice silent thanks to Gavin for letting us use his drum performances from our album at the gigs. In the second set I go a bit mental during ‘The Arms of Miklosko’ (our tribute to the great Czech goalkeeper) and do a few mad sweeps up and down the keyboard. At the peak of the last sweep I realise I’ve broken something, a black note is stuck down and sustaining a very loud, very wrong note. A quick patch change cuts off the racket and I make a mental note not to play that key again tonight. We play ‘In a Silent Way’ — a lovely composition by the late Joe Zawinul. Andy stands beside me and plays keyboard bass on the T3 while I use a ‘70s-style auto-wah Rhodes sound I’ve programmed on the Fantom. There’s no backing track, no click track, no tempo, we just follow Barb’s free-time vocal line. This is new territory for us, and the audience seems to appreciate it. Andy is very good at picking up Barb’s cues and, in places, delicately reinforces her vocal line with a breathy flute sound. It’s great to work with someone who can play with such sensitivity yet turn into a raging metal guitar maniac when required. Day three  Photo: Harumi Maezawa An early show today, followed by the ‘fan party’ where people will queue for ages and we’ll sign innumerable albums recorded by our respective bands back in the Neolithic era. Before the gig Ted manages to fix my broken key, opening up the keyboard, turning it upside down and giving it a good shake till the broken part of the key falls out. Superglue is applied and we’re ready to resume battle. I’m grateful, and vow to go easy on the glissandi tonight. Nerves aren’t the problem now, it’s complacency. Having done two shows we think we know what we’re doing, but that’s when you forget things. Andy and I forget things before a single note is played. He initiates playback at the top of the set with a false start (having forgotten to reset the song to the beginning after our soundcheck), and I omitted to put in my earpiece. As the song restarts I realise I’m going to miss the count-in — f*ck! I lunge for the wire, jamming the thing into my left ear and praying I haven’t missed the second bar of the count (after that point it’s impossible to predict where the downbeat will occur). Fortunately I just catch the second click in bar one, followed by four immensely reassuring quarter notes that enable me to deliver the triumphant opening chord in the right place. Phew! It’s not good to dwell on mistakes, but if I’d missed that first chord I’d have spent the next 10 minutes kicking myself. This is the last gig for a while and I want it to be memorable. To that end I go especially bonkers in the keyboard solos and afterwards Ted tactfully enquires, “Dave... did I hear some Bach in there?” Andy is suffering from jet-lag and, noticing his slumped posture and bowed head as he stands in the wings during a solo keyboard intro, I wonder whether he’s fallen asleep (he said later he was “getting into the music”). Either way, I have to surreptitiously attract Barb’s attention to rouse him into starting playback for the next section — it’s amazing what complex messages you can convey using only your eyebrows. We hadn’t realised that Japanese audiences now routinely demand two encores. We’ve only prepared one, so for the second we repeat a tune we played earlier. ‘Miklosko’ has gone down well and is great fun to play, so we finish up with that, making a rousing racket that the listeners obviously enjoy. Andy and I trade screeching solos, our vocalist sings her heart out, we reach the final crashing chord and then, sadly, it’s the end of a gig and we’re bowing our final goodbyes. A member of the audience touchingly hands Barb a bunch of flowers, then it’s good night Tokyo. Days four and five  Photo: Harumi Maezawa A Fedex plane has crashed on the runway at Narita airport, killing the two-man crew. All international flights are cancelled while they clear the wreckage. We’re shocked but also disappointed, as we were looking forward to getting home. The phone lines are jammed and there’s no info on the Internet, so we decide to drive 60km to the airport to find out what’s going on. Surprisingly, the normally courteous Japan Airlines staff are less than helpful, telling us in effect to go away and watch this space. We drive back to town and Tom Ohsawa, Ted and his wife Pietra (an amiable woman who came along on this trip for the ride) go to JAL’s main office. After working their way through a succession of underlings, our trio of negotiators (led by an uncharacteristically cross Mrs Hayton) are told categorically by Mr Big Manager Guy that JAL will not compensate our extra hotel and food expenses because the crash wasn’t their fault, and that there are no available seats on flights to London for two days. Oh dear, there go the gig profits. It could be worse — we’re in Tokyo, an exciting place far from the reach of domestic chores and electricity bills. Barb and I make the most of our enforced spare time by visiting the Meiji Jingu shrine with our friend Masahiko Miyazaki. In the evening Tom takes us all out for an exquisite Japanese meal comprising a medley of small courses of unimaginably tasty delicacies. The next day, tiredness kicks in but Barbara, Andy and I resist the temptation of an early night and accept Tom’s gracious invitation to take us to the Abbey Road club. There we see three sets by the Parrots, a very good Japanese Beatles tribute band. This is a fitting way to end an extremely enjoyable trip, chatting with our cultured host about the 1960s British psychedelic scene over a couple of beers. I feel quite emotional hearing the Liverpudlians’ dear old songs, and it’s clear that the Tokyo audience of twenty-somethings enjoy them as much as we do, proof that music can transcend the barriers of language, distance and time. 0  Sound Engineer’s board report  Photo: Harumi Maezawa During all the years I worked in music, few pushed and challenged the limits of music technology as much as this enigmatic duo. Although I left the industry some while ago to pursue other dreams, music remains an intrinsic component of my DNA, and so the invite to work with Dave and Barbara again and go back to Japan was a double treat for me. The complexity of Dave’s rigs has long been carved in the annals of recording folklore. However, after a visit down to their West Country hideaway, I quickly learned that the setup for this series of concerts was actually going to be less complicated than the rig for our previous visit to this enchanted country back in 2001. Most of the rhythm section was to be assembled beforehand onto an Alesis HD24. This was the first time I had come across a modern digital embodiment of a tape-hurtling machine. It was an extremely impressive, totally intuitive piece of kit and was never a problem. By the time we’d boarded the JAL flight at Heathrow, everything had been planned in minute detail. I had pored over the manual for the venue’s Soundcraft K-2 32-channel console and knew the desk off by heart. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the hotel in Tokyo, I got a call from the club to say that the desk had blown and they were replacing it with another make. Oh well, time to get some sleep and we’ll sort it in the morning. I was pleasantly surprised when we arrived at the venue. It had an intimate feel and I could tell that the acoustic was not going to alter very much with an audience present. The venue staff themselves could not have been more helpful and throughout our stay their sound engineer, Moky, and his staff bent over backwards to help us. We had an arsenal of hired equipment to rig together with some extremely complex on-stage monitoring, but the crew had us installed in double-quick time. The replacement desk however, a Midas Venice 320, posed a problem as it had no line input switch and no pads. As nearly all our stage sources were line-level, some quick thinking was in order. With gig time rapidly approaching, the most expedient solution was to run all the channel gains on minimum, use the full throw of the Midas channel faders, and run a subgroup of these with the subgroup faders at half mast to attenuate some of the gain. Not the greatest signal structure, but I could hear no distortion and all the clipping indicators remained extinguished. Once that was sorted it was just a question of a normal soundcheck, and here all the planning paid off. The only decisions to make were to find a reverb that was an extension of the venue’s natural ambience and to set up some pre-defined delays for the various song tempos. My chosen reverb was a Lexicon MPX550, which I used mainly on Barbara’s vocal, but also on some instruments to compensate for the audience soaking up the room ambience. Once the delays were programmed into a TC Electronic D-Two, we were set to go. Because all of us were so well rehearsed, the soundcheck was a formality and before we knew it, the doors were open and we were off! The remaining concerts were just fantastic. Their music is so intricate that you can’t busk it, you really must have it committed to memory and know what’s coming next. Such fun after all these years, a bit like falling off a bike. I can’t wait to go back. Stewart/Gaskin stage equipment  Andy Reynolds had been enlisted to play guitar for the duo. Photo: Harumi Maezawa Dave Stewart Korg Trinity. Yamaha DX7. Roland Fantom G6. Korg 01/WFD. Korg T3. Roland RE-301 Chorus Echo. Roland M-120 line mixer. Mackie 2408 mixer. Two Mackie SRM450 powered speakers. Playback Alesis HD24 hard-disk recorder. Andy Reynolds Tom Anderson electric guitar. Fender Stratocaster. Pod XT Live. Mackie 1202 mixer. Two Mackie SRM450 powered speakers. Barbara Gaskin Shure Beta 58 microphone. Mackie 1402 mixer. Shure P6HW headphone amp and belt pack. Live mix Playback channels 1-16 (FOH): 1. Backing vocals. 2. Kick. 3. Snare. 4. Hi-hat. 5. Overheads, toms and live room (L). 6. Overheads, toms and live room (R). 7. Percussion mix (L). 8. Percussion mix (R). 9. Bass (L). 10. Bass (R). 11. Main keys (L). 12. Main keys (R). 13. Aux keys (L). 14. Aux keys (R). 15. Samples (L). 16. Samples (R). Playback 17-24 (monitors): 17. Barbara vocals. 18. Andy vocals. 19. Dave vocals. 20. Unused. 21. Guitar (L). 22. Guitar (R). 23. Roland Chorus Echo (L). 24. Roland Chorus Echo (R). 25. Korg Trinity (L). 26. Korg Trinity (R). 27. Keys sub-mix (L). 28. Keys sub-mix (R). 29. Roland Fantom G6 (L). 30. Roland Fantom G6 (R). 31. Unused. 32. Unused. (Playback channels 1-24 from Alesis HD24 hard-disk recorder). Live channels (FOH): 1. Full mix (L). 2. Full mix (R). 3. Rhythm mix (L). 4. Rhythm mix (R). 5. Keys mix (L). 6. Keys mix (R). 7. Unused. 8. Clicks and count-ins. Published in PM November 2009  |
|
All contents copyright © SOS Publications Group and/or its licensors, 2007-2010.
All rights reserved. The contents of this article are subject to worldwide copyright protection and reproduction in whole or part, whether mechanical or electronic, is expressly forbidden without the prior written consent of the Publishers. Great care has been taken to ensure accuracy in the preparation of this article but neither SOS Publications Group nor the publishers can be held responsible for its contents. The views expressed are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the Publishers.
Web site designed & maintained by PB Associates | SOS | Relative Media |