Robert Plant goes ‘organic’ with SSL Live
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The current Robert Plant tour, according to Kennedy, has an 'organic' approach that works well. It is by no means a silent stage, with 15 monitor wedges plus side-fills in use, and in-ear-monitoring has been put aside. "It's a very real show," says Kennedy. "There's no playback, and quite a few acoustic instruments: Banjos, mandolins, acoustic guitars... And almost everybody sings."
His approach to the console and mixing the show has been back-to-basics: "I turn everything off and start with a blank slate - the simplest set-up I can create. Then as I need to I turn features on - apart from the normal channel processing, I use the SSL’s Bus compressor, reverbs, delays, the VHD Saturator, and the 31-band graphic EQ from the FX rack."
Before this tour, Kennedy had used an SSL live console on the Faithless 20th Anniversary tour: "Since I have been using the SSL, a lot has changed. There have been a lot of small updates that have made it easier to use. The input and output routing, for example, has improved a lot. It has got better and better since I first used it. But the main thing has, of course, always been the sound. The clarity and the dynamic range is amazing."
(Jim Evans)
