English metalcore band Bring Me The Horizon returned to Australia this month for a run of sold-out arena shows. It was heartening to see one of the world’s largest rock bands being mixed by Jared Daly who is a ‘local boy’ having studied at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) straight out of school. During that time, he worked as a live-to-air radio panel operator at B105 and MMM whilst also working with a local production company building corporate band productions.
“For the first few years out of school I just said yes to everything I could be a part of and learnt as much as I could from engineers coming through the production company and meeting engineers at local shows,” said Jared. “My first tour came about because a good friend and mentor Wes Higgins had a family emergency and needed someone to cover a weekend he had booked with an Australian artist called Ash Grunwald. It was for monitors/patch and general help with a live loop Ableton rig. I said I would step in and cover him and from then I’ve been touring full time.”
Jared met BMTH in 2013 when he was on tour with their support act Northlane in North America off the back of their US headline tour. BMTH’s long-time monitor engineer wasn’t able to make the tour and they were struggling with the monitor engineers they had out in the States. A member of Northlane got talking with BMTH and they suggested if they needed an engineer that Jared would be a good fit.
Jared covered monitors at the next show and has been working with them ever since, moving from monitors to FOH in 2019.
The band spend a lot of time and energy in presenting an almost theatrical feeling show and this tour has a narrative running throughout with interludes between songs continuing a storyline that’s been evolving from tour to tour. Alongside that, the set spans nearly 20 years of material so making sure each era is represented correctly is very important.
“We go from a full production latest release to a throwback song from 2008 which has a very different instrumentation,” explained Jared. “The studio mixes are always the reference point and the drastic change in sonics adds impact to the show and I lean into highlighting the differences between styles of production from different albums.”
BMTH has been a d&b audiotechnik band for the entirety of Jared’s time with them, from the J-Subs on stage to the GSL system they tour for FOH.
“The band love the sound of the boxes and we never have any issues, even when needing to move down to KSL for any weight/SPL issues in the venues as we have done in Brisbane,” added Jared. “The PA for this tour is a d&b GSL series which was designed and deployed by Grant Cropley, the band’s System Engineer. The system consists of 18 GSL mains, 6 flown SL Sub, 16 KSL as side hangs, 10 SL subs on the ground and 10 V12 front fills.”
The audio system is based on the DiGiCo platform on stage, Jon Simcox the band’s monitor engineer is using a Quantum 338 paired with 24-bit cards in an SD rack. There is an optical loop to playback with DD4 madi boxes picking up all the required IO and they send the Optocore out to FOH to 2 x DD4 units. From there, Jared picks up the inputs via MADI into his console.
“My control is an Allen & Heath (S5000/DM0) system receiving all audio from the DiGiCo copy audio,” elaborated Jared. “That way we can gain share and remove any need for a split. Both Jon and I use Waves Superrack systems and I also use Live Professor/UAD, Neve Portico and Shelford Channel. All supplied by 8th Day Productions.”
Jared leans heavily on automation for this show, from the moment the show begins he is only really focusing on Oli’s, the lead singer, vocal and dipping into instruments to highlight any solo/important
moment. Everything else is controlled via midi recalls chasing LTC from the stage.
“I use Reaper to provide midi to the console, SR and LP. Another area we take special care of is the flown sub-array, it allows us to give everyone in the venue the same impact from the show, whilst also not punishing the front row. The SL series really shines here and we take special care to ensure every seat has the same experience from the PA.”
The majority of the live mic’ing in this show is drums now that the guitars have moved away from live cabs. Last tour Matt Nicholls added a double kick drum to the setup so there are a pair of Shure Beta 91as and DPA 4055s. The snare is a pair of Lauten “Snare Mics”, all toms are Telefunken M80s and cymbals are undermic’d with Shure KSM 137s.
Oli’s vocal is a d:facto 4018v on a Shure Axient handheld and John Jones, the band’s session guitarist/vocalist, is using a Shure KSM8.
Monitor Engineer Jon Simcox is mixing on a DiGiCo Quantum 338 with Waves Superrack. The band are all on JH Audio in-ear monitors with support from four d&b J-Subs as sidefills.
“The band used to be a very loud stage, from guitar cabs on stage and six d&b M2s plus sidefills for Oli,” said Jared. “Over the years we have slowly lowered the volume by going to cabs underneath the stage, to then the Quad Cortexes and eventually moving Oli from wedges to IEMs. Now every member is on IEMs and all guitar players are using Neural DSP Quad Cortexes so the stage is silent apart from drums and some low end from the sidefills to give the band some impact on stage.”
The main thing that Jared needs to concentrate on is Oli’s vocal during the show as he changes from a whisper to a scream constantly and he has different techniques for each type of vocal.
“I have a processing chain for each type and automation to move mutes between words/phrases,” remarked Jared. “So staying on top of that balance is what I am focusing on for most of the show. Whilst I am focusing on the vocal, the instrumental section of the mix is automating in the background and maintaining dynamics so the transitions from verse to chorus still have dynamic pushes but that is handled with automation rather than me actively mixing.”
