The A Matter of Time Tour was Icelandic musician Laufey’s third world tour, her first arena tour, starting in September 2025 and running for a year. A two-time GRAMMY®-winning artist known for bringing her jazz-influenced style to Gen Z, Laufey is on a meteoric rise, and you’d be hard-pressed to find negative comments about the show.
Her two-hour show unfolds in distinct conceptual acts inspired by golden-age Hollywood, black-and-white cinema, and storybooks. Through timeless orchestrations and a modern lens, it explores unrequited love, wistful longing, and fleeting encounters.
After 12 years producing records, Laufey’s FOH engineer, Matt Grabe, shifted to live sound as a system engineer. He toured with Neil Diamond, Lenny Kravitz, Pharrell Williams, Gabriel Iglesias, and more. After mixing FOH for several artists, he met Laufey, whom he has been mixing since March of 2024.
With two stage racks handling 120 live inputs, Grabe must keep the mix organised, intelligible, and dynamic for the jazz arena performance. “Different approaches have come and gone, but it’s dialled now,” he commented.
The PA is an L-Acoustics system with 12 K1 over 4 K2 per side for the mains; 12 K2 per side for the aux, and 12 K2 per side for the rears. Eight KS28 per side are flown behind the mains, with 9 KS28 per side as ground support. Six Kara II provide front-fill coverage with an additional 4 ARCS as out-fill when necessary.
“The transient response of L-Acoustics suits Laufey well,” remarked Grabe. “I have two compressors on the entire desk – a multi-band on her vocal and a gentle one across the music bus. Other than that, there’s no compression. For this reason, I rely on the PA to accurately translate the transient response.”
A jazz trio set takes place on a B-stage midway through the show. For the US leg, this stage extended 60 ft. Once the DSP and distance latencies were accounted for, the band heard themselves 80 milliseconds later. Grabe said it took several days of production rehearsals for everyone to settle in.
Grabe remarks that Laufey is an incredible talent. All the vocal processing is subtle to let her control the dynamics of the performance. “I have developed a process with the PA to keep her vocal intelligible at all times,” he says. “We use the bottom circuit pan-flex to avoid the thrust. I also capture transfers of each main array circuit with her vocal downstage centre to evaluate the direct and reflected energy. After that, the vocal is very stable.”
Grabe has used DiGiCo exclusively because they’re intuitive, reliable, and easy to source worldwide. The DiGiCo 338 Pulse is supplemented with 128 channels of Pro Tools and a Waves SuperRack LiveBox. His plugins include Waves Sibilance Live, Waves IDX, and Alpha Labs De-Feedback.
“There was nothing like De-Feedback for live prior,” Grabe explained. “Now that it’s available with reasonable latency, I jumped at the chance to use it. She’s a very dynamic singer. Being able to remove the background noise even during a whisper has been a game changer.”
In 2024, Grabe switched Laufey to the Shure Nexadyne 8/S dynamic microphone.
“Shure sent me several microphones to try. The Nexadyne worked best on her,” he commented. “For quiet vocals, I typically prefer dynamic microphones. Nexadyne’s dual-diaphragm design rejects the reflected noise quite well. This allows me to place her vocal right out front.”
Grabe has a DPA 4055 inside the kick, Beyerdynamic 201s on snare tops, DPA 2012s on snare bottoms, and Earthworks SR25s for overheads. He takes a less conventional approach with a Shure SM7B on the hi-hat and Shure KSM137s on the toms. DPA 4099s handle most of the string section.
“We do have Schertler DYN G P48s on the cellos,” he explained. “The 4099s are hi-passed at 200 Hz. The Schertlers handle everything below to avoid resonance with the PA.
“I like a loud crowd. It feels interactive being able to adjust to their energy. Through the show, I bring the music down below 80 dBA. If I can hear someone whispering to keep quiet, that’s where I want to be. That way, when the band pushes loud, the contrast is exciting.”
Monitors
For the past 15 years, monitor engineer Sebastian Mut has toured with artists across pop, country, rock, hip-hop, and R&B, and is known for his work with Sabrina Carpenter, Andy Grammer, and Kelsea Ballerini. He started working with Laufey in early 2025.
Mut started the tour with a DiGiCo Quantum 338 and upgraded to a Quantum 5 as the tour progressed.
“The band’s needs grew, so we moved to a larger console to accommodate everything,” he added. “We have 14 people onstage plus Laufey herself.”
Mut’s primary challenge is managing the crowd, as the show can be quieter than most pop shows and the crowd tends to be loud.
“Juggling the balance between the two tends to be hard,” he commented. “For example, they do a B-stage segment on a thrust with an open drum kit and a classic-looking microphone. They play free-form jazz for four or five songs. Moments like this in an arena environment have always been a challenge. We’ve been using tools like De-Feedback and Cedar StageVox to clean up microphones and handle this scenario.”
With 15 performers on stage, each needing a separate mix, Sebastian relies heavily on console automation to manage everyone’s requirements and keep them comfortable.
Everyone is on IEMs with thirty channels of Wisycom for IEMs and then another thirty channels of Shure Axient, plus Showlink, for wireless. The B stage performance utilises wireless packs on drums and other instruments to make that changeover quick.
“With this amount of RF devices, radio frequencies can be a problem depending on the market, Mut remarked. “US and Europe tend to be a little bit more of a challenge than we’ve had here in Australia or in Asia.
“With that, we’ve had to do some interesting, more unconventional antenna deployments for a show this size. We’ve had to do three different transmit zones and a couple of receive zones to accurately cover everything because of a centre-stage staircase made of only metal. The guitar player is tucked all the way in the upstage right corner, so trying to pick him up through the entire set piece has been quite the challenge.”
The IEM brand everyone uses is 64 Audio, which has been the IEM of choice for several years. The band use 64 Audio A18Ts, and the string section has A12Ts.
Laufey’s vast appeal defies easy explanation, but its impact is undeniable. By the concert’s end, strangers are embracing, the room is filled with smiles, and the audience’s connection to her feels unlike anything I’ve witnessed. Don’t miss her next tour.
Photos: Nicole Mago
This article first appeared in the October issue of Lighting & Sound International
