Becky G takes KLANG on first solo tour
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Her first solo headlining tour, Mi Casa, Tu Casa, covered 16 cities, starting in Boston on 14 September and hit Orlando, San Antonio, El Paso, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and more. It was a big show, with a band, a DJ, and numerous guest artists. Monitoring on the 64-input stage would be a challenge, one that the KLANG:fabrik immersive in-ear monitoring solution handled night after night.
The tour’s visual production set its complex tone. Monitor engineer Lucas Pinzón describes it as “a theatre tour, but easily adaptable to arenas, that travels with a lot of scenery. In each show, Becky's childhood ‘house’ is recreated, with musicians distributed among stairs, hallways, flowers, and second floors.”
It took 64 input channels to accommodate that very full ‘house’ that included a drummer with a set of acoustic drums and an SPD machine, along with a bassist with an electric bass and Moog keyboard, a guitarist with electric and acoustic guitars, and a loquacious DJ with two stereo units. In addition, there were 18 channels of tracks operated by a separate playback technician.
Then came the guest artists including sierreño trio Conexión Divina and six musicians who formed a ‘regional music section’ with guitar, requinto, bass tololoche, two trumpets, a trombone, and a tuba who both opened for and backed Becky G during her show, underscoring her Mexican musical roots.
To manage all of this, Pinzón set up 13 stereo IEM mixes, plus one additional for guests, all using Shure PSM 1000 IEMs. The KLANG:fabrik was loaded onto his LV1 console, which matched another LV1 out at FOH, mixed on by Ramon Pabon. Pinzón’s monitor console featured the KLANG:fabrik system, integrated into the SoundGrid network through an MGB with MADI ports.
“For me, it was a great challenge because it was the first time I worked with the KLANG system and the LV1 console,” he explains. “I must say, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy and intuitive it was to adapt to its sound and integration with KLANG.”
Pinzón, whose past live-sound mixing includes work with Maluma, Carlos Vives, and Bomba Estéreo, says that the idea of using the KLANG:fabrik came about at the suggestion of production manager Gabriel Gil, also a sound engineer. “After a recent guest appearance on Karol G's tour, Becky was delighted with the sound and wanted to integrate it into her own setup,” he says. “It was amazing for me to have the freedom to build a mix to my liking and for it to be so well received by the artist.
“After 20 shows, Becky never wanted to make any additional changes to what we had built in rehearsals with Gabriel. Since it was the first tour using the system, we decided to use KLANG only for Becky and the guests. The result was spectacular! Guests who didn't have a soundcheck and arrived for the show had a copy of the positions and levels used in Becky's mix. After using it, they were happy and satisfied with their mix on stage.
“However, after this tour and the success we had with the KLANG system, there are plans to upgrade to a DiGiCo Orange box and integrate more mixes into this system through a DMI-KLANG card.”
