FOH engineer Ian Zorbaugh
USA - Winners in the New Group category at the 2016 Academy of Country Music Awards Old Dominion have been touring its Happy Endings album, and supporting the likes of Kenny Chesney and Thomas Rhett. The band has also been confirmed for Chesney’s Trip Around the Sun stadium tour in 2018.
Earlier this year, FOH engineer Ian Zorbaugh and monitor engineer Dean Studebaker decided to take SSL L300 Plus consoles, supplied by premier event production company Morris Lighting & Sound, on the road with Old Dominion.
Zorbaugh chose the SSL L300 because of the positive feedback he was hearing from other engineers - particularly Chris Rabold, who used L500 on the Kenny Chesney tour, which Old Dominion have been supporting. "The main thing I heard about the SSLs was that they sound absolutely phenomenal - that you need minimal EQ, less processing, and so on. I wanted to experience that, and to get to know the console."
Zorbaugh manages about 60 inputs from stage, with half of those coming from Whit Sellers' sizable drum kit, including two snares, four toms, and a wide range of cymbals. With that number of drums squeezed into the kit, and generating a lot of volume, control is an important part of the on-stage craft. As well as the standard kit microphones, there are also a number of drum triggers set up to feed the gate side chains on the individual kit channels. "All the cymbals are so close - some are actually closer to some of the tom mics than the toms are," explains Zorbaugh. "So having the triggers means that the correct gate opens when he's hitting the tom and stays closed when the splash cymbal is flying around everywhere."
Zorbaugh’s original motivation for taking SSL Live on tour was its reputation for sound quality. "Everything sounds very natural - less like there's a computer in the way; like there isn't as much 'stuff' going on - definitely a more analogue feel."
(Jim Evans)

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline