Homegrown icon and international star, Tina Arena, is touring nationally through May 2021 with her brand-new show, Enchanté: The Songs of Tina Arena.
FOH Engineer Danny Olesh first worked with Tina in the 90s so a long time ago although he didn’t tour with her directly at the time, just a few corporate shows.
“I was on tour mixing the support band CDB when she had a big tour around the country during the 90s,” he explained. “It’s really in 2017 when we connected again – Tina was changing the creative crew, we met up and spoke about the kind of production I would like to achieve on her voice and that was it. Since then I have been taking care of FOH for all the tours and full shows she has done.”
Tina likes her sound to be cinematic and rich in content, especially on this tour, where the focus is on coverage of vocals without harshness. There are quiet songs and loud songs, the dynamics of the whole show changes at times and so does the master fader.
For this tour, Danny chose to run with the AVID S6L 32d, a choice he describes as pretty easy in reality.
“It delivers workflow, features, sound, integrated WAVES processing,” he began. “I just found it easy to migrate to from the previous VI console I was using. We could also use one for monitors and one for FOH making it easy to share a rack. Virtual soundcheck and the direct integration to Pro Tools make it easy to check and record the whole show with automated snap show names in your recorded sessions.
Knowing the songs inside out, every part of every song, Danny can pinpoint specific frequencies that mainly affect the bass and her vocal and treat them properly so they don’t resonate overly in every room.
“Then the treatment of the vocal effects and following those where needed,” he added. “The dynamics of this show require constant riding of several channels to create crescendos and elaborate large effect as well.”
Vocally, Danny tested several capsules on the Shure UR4D wireless system both for Tina and backup vocalist Nelusha and ended up with the sE Electronics V7 super-cardioid dynamic microphones. Both Tina and Nelusha felt it gave them better clarity in their IEM’s and Danny was happy with the sound at FOH as well.
The rest of the mics were pretty straightforward: Shure Beta 52A, Shure SM57, Shure SM81 and Sennheiser e904. There were two Radial HotShot DM-1 Momentary A/B Foot Switch, 1 In 2 Out, passive for stage talk from band members to monitors.
The PA system is a d&b audiotechnik KSL comprising of 46 x KSL 8 and 16 x KSL 12, 12 x SL subs, 6 x Y12 front fill and 4 x Q7 front fill.
“The tonal pallet and voicing consistency work very well for Tina,” said Danny. “The spectacular rear rejection makes for an amazingly quiet stage sound – besides one small sub for the bass there are no other amps on stage.”
Monitor Engineer Ricki Rae also mixes on an S6L 32d as its features made it easier to control ten stereo IEM mixes. Fast access to controls, enough faders and integrated WAVES processing were also features of not.
“We only have two small wedges on stage for security (IEM FAIL) and a little sound and one sub near the bass player,” said Danny. “All are on stereo Shure PSM1000 IEMs. No amps on this tour as we are trying to keep the stage as quiet as possible, especially for very dynamic songs where it’s just piano, double bass and Tina.”
Danny reports that this show is not a normal band playing rather a cinematic, theatrical experience that goes between soft mellow songs to huge songs with a full orchestra and band. Tina can sing in a beautiful soft voice and then belt out huge notes, needs to all be kept under control, not only volume but frequency wise.
“If she is whispering, you have a big orchestra behind her then you need to create the space in the mix for her to sit above this,” added Danny. “There are a lot of dynamic EQ’s (WAVES F6) and sidechaining of groups where the voice is controlling which frequencies it needs per song and where they should sit in the mix, allowed the whole show to work seamlessly. I have a fader that controls the amount of influence Tina’s voice has on the other groups, a fader that controls the amount of total music against her voice, a fader that acts as a vocal enhancer. These are manually driven throughout the show to create the required dynamics. This takes time, and working with multi-tracks using ‘virtual sound check’, we run most of the songs before the band even gets to the venue so we can tune them each to the room we are in.”
Danny says the tour has been amazing with a great crew including John Hall, Ryan Fallis and Boden Birkett.
“You need to trust that the crew will hand over a PA in each venue that you just need some very simple EQ tweaks to make it sound the way you like it,” he said. “Great gear, amazing orchestrations, and Tina’s voice all elevate the rest of the team to as perfect as you can make it. There are no excuses here so the pressure is always on.”
The Melbourne show was especially unique as they had to integrate the MSO with the band. John Hall mixed the MSO on a separate console and sent Danny stereo stems of the main instruments to integrate with the mix.
Crew photo: Peter Rubie, Ryan Fallis, Ricki Rae, Danny Olesh, Boden Birkett, John Hall.
