Currently touring the country with her Driving Music Tour is Mallrat, the singer and rapper from Brisbane also known as Grace Shaw.
Her lighting designer Zoe Spratling was pretty much free to do her own thing on the tour – with only a few requests to keep in mind for certain songs.
“The main notes I were told was that she likes a lot of white light and only one colour at a time – although I’m hoping to change her mind one day on this one!” laughed Zoe. “I made videos for all the songs so Mallrat could provide feedback and luckily there were only a few minor changes and surprisingly, I was not asked to change the songs I tried some colour combos in!”
As there’s no band onstage with Mallrat, filling the space and creating a deep sense of atmosphere was incredibly important to Zoe. In saying that there were a few times where she wanted to use that empty/negative space to create feelings of isolation.
Zoe says that trying to incorporate “metal” lighting into the show was a bit of a challenge. That is predominantly the style she does most and is why she was hired.
“Mallrat couldn’t be further from that style so trying to find points in the set where I could make it more metal with strobes or some faster effects etc plus break out of the mindset of “let’s make it really pretty” without things looking too over the top or silly was challenging for me. Also not being able to use colour effect because she likes one colour at a time took away some options for certain moments and I had to find other ways to accent parts in songs.”
The floor package was hired from Resolution X and consisted of 12 x Ayrton MagicBlade FX, six Nitec LED Blinders on upright pipes and six Martin MAC Viper Profiles on the floor. The pipes were arranged in a V shape with the tallest pipes at the back in the middle and then spreading out and downstage with them getting shorter. This was done to fill the space on the stage due to the lack of band and create varying levels of height. Each pipe had two MagicBlades and a blinder. The zoom of the MagicBlade FX is a key component in the design as well as the gobos of the Vipers for some aerial effects.
The show is being run off an Onyx PC set up that Zoe owns, saying that although Onyx does have its limitations she thinks it may be overlooked a little in terms of bang for buck!
“Programming wise it’s a really basic, simple show,” she added. “I’m used to having 60-100+ cues per song with a fair amount of manual flash buttons but the most I have in this show for a song is 20 and one song has only three cues and a handful of manual hits. This show is definitely a less is more case and I think that works well for it. Makes those big moments even more special.”
Although this show had no set pieces or video, Zoe would love to incorporate more of that and even some lasers into future shows when she has a bigger budget and more time to plan.
“Covid-19 has made it difficult with things getting confirmed so last minute because we just don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “Things could change suddenly and then shows are getting cancelled or moved – which has happened with some festival dates, unfortunately.”
Zoe started working with Mallrat earlier this year with her first show being Summer Sounds Festival in Adelaide.
“It’s always nerve-wracking starting with a new client,” she commented. “Not only hoping they like your work but also hoping that you get along especially if you’re jumping straight into a tour with them. Luckily Mallrat and crew are some of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with and I look forward to every show I have with the team!”
AUDIO
Shaun Fuller has been working for Mallrat sing 2019 and he mixed the show on a Digidesign Profile saying that whenever possible his preference for this show is an Avid S6l or Profile.
“I use it as Mallrat does a lot of festival appearances and the Avid desks are generally the industry standard FOH console for festival shows and larger venues, so it allows me to keep a consistent sound across most shows without incurring the cost of hiring our console for each show,” he added.
Shaun ran a UAD X6 rack at FOH as inserts on the vocal chain and Master bus as well as all his Delay, Verb etc FX returns.
“This allows us to use many of the same sounds that you’d use in the studio and again helps us keep a consistent vocal sound irrespective of what console/hardware is available at each show,” he explained.
For this shows current set-up Shaun also mixed monitors from FOH, with talkback mics side of the stage, and different places that output to a shout speaker at his FOH console. This allows Mallrat and Denim to discretely request any changes in their monitor mix without having to listen to the conversation back and forth.
Mallrat has JH Audio moulded IEMs and used a Shure PSM transmitter/receiver. Denim uses a 3 way Stereo DJ booth set-up (generally d&b where available) and Audio Technica ATH-M50s for headphones to cue tracks.
For Mallrat’s vocal, a Telefunken M80 capsule on a Shure QLXD transmitter and receiver is used. The Telefunken has a tight pickup pattern that gives Shaun a lot of gain before feedback and a really sparkly top end that sounds great on Mallrat’s voice.
“Mallrat naturally sings quietly which gives her voice a fantastic tone but requires a lot of compression to get her voice clear and prominently sitting above the music,” added Shaun. “This combined with the long reverbs and delays makes tuning the PA and any on stage sidefills super crucial to avoid any feedback issues. To combat this I also use an expander at the beginning of the vocal chain and I have GEQs inserted on all the vocal channels as well as on all the FX Returns so I only need to cut problem frequencies from their specific source rather than carving up the PA as a whole.”
At The Enmore they used the L-Acoustic V-dosc house PA that Shaun says is loud and sounds great.
“I think both shows went great, the crowd was awesome, I was really happy with the sound and Grace put on a great performance,” he concluded. “The lights, in particular, were fantastic for these shows, Zoe did an amazing job programming the lights to each song which really brought the show to a whole other level.”
Photos: Ashley Mar I Casey Garnsey
@zoespratlingld
