Bring Me The Horizon choose Eighth Day
- Details
Having worked with the Clair Global Group last year for their Reading & Leeds headline shows before US and Australian runs, the band’s touring crew recently enjoyed another faultless vendor experience.
Production manager Mitch Gee and tour manager Tim Boardman had worked with Eighth Day Sound’s Stuart Wright many times previously.
Boardman comments: “Knowing we could rely on him to provide the gear we needed at the price we needed and with a great attitude the whole way through, was key. Consistency is very important to us.”
He describes the production’s attention to detail from the musicians, to techs and the front of house sound as simply “incredible.”
Handling the difference between the Bring Me The Horizon’s back-catalogue of hits - which sees a constant dynamic shift - leaves FOH engineer Jared Daly charged with keeping the show’s sound cohesive and impactful.
“The band spend a great amount of time curating their live shows. The level of detail that goes into every aspect of their production is more detailed than any other artists I’ve ever worked with… and their expectation of a FOH engineer is no different,” states Daly.
Daly notes, “From the moment we started to work with Eighth Day Sound, it has been fantastic. The system on stage is fairly complex and given the amount of MIDI distribution and Optocore pathways we need, Stuart Wright worked with us from the very beginning to understand our exact requirements and streamline our package as much as possible.
“Everything came out of the shop ‘show ready’. There were no tweaks required during production rehearsal, and the crew on tour with us have been incredible. The support and knowledge from Eighth Day’s tech department has actually been invaluable.”
This tour is the band’s first without an analogue split, instead Daly pulls inputs from the stage Optocore network to minimise the SL rack footprint and to simplify the line system.
For this tour, Daly is using an Allen & Heath dLive S5000 with a compact dLive MixRack and a DX32 Expander. He continues: “I’ve been a dLive user for years, spanning from my time mixing monitors for the band. I’ve loved my time on the Allen & Heath platform; being able to move up and down the console range has been key, as I never have to change or rebuild the show file during any fly show configurations.
“For Outboard, I have one analogue piece for the final stage of the mix before broadcast, a Neve Portico MPB, which gives one last stage of saturation and mid-side processing.”
For vocal mics it’s DPA D:Facto 4018 models across the board. Daly has a Waves Super-Rack with Extreme Servers from Eighth Day, alongside his own side cart rack running Audiostrom’s Live Professor & UAD's Apollo Hardware. “I have Reaper chasing Timecode from stage and sending out MIDI automation, recalling all snapshots required during the performance.
“Oli is running a Shure Axient wireless handheld and Jordan has a wired DPA. I requested that we move to them in 2019 as I had the chance to trial them with another artist and loved them. The off-axis rejection is excellent for those moments where Oli stands close to the drum kit,” he adds.
There has been a Group effort from the Clair brands to ensure every detail was met. Group partners Skan PA were drafted in to assist with the PA deployment - the band’s first outing with a main d&b audiotechnik’s KSL hang.
The system comprises KSL loudspeakers with SL subs both flown and on the floor in an array, with a handful of Y10P deployed along the front for fills. Dickson continues: “It’s driven by d&b D80 amplifiers, making full use of the d&b Array Processing to help achieve a consistent listening experience while fully exploiting the acoustic potential of the KSL.”
In monitor world, engineer Jon Simcox is running 18 wireless IEM mixes and a hardware pack for drummer Matt Nicholls, plus side fills, extra sub lines on stage, drum thumper, and around 11 FX sends. The band all opt for Jerry Harvey Audio JH Audio Roxannes.
For Simcox, this job had DiGiCo written all over it. “I’ve used DiGiCo for quite a few years and have chosen a Quantum 338 for this tour.”
