Scott Mullane has been the FOH operator for Short Stack since 2009 for all tours and it has been a big part of his career to date, having seen the band grow over this time and become friends with them all.
“There is almost as much banter between tours during the State of Origin as on tour!” laughed Scott. “The band are all NSW based and I am QLD based so the mud-slinging is great.”
The current tour incorporates eleven gigs around the country using all in-house PAs as most of the venues they are playing have more than adequate setups.
“I am also not super fussy when it comes to top-end PA systems, although I do have my preferences, at the pointy end they all do a great job and are more influenced by deployment,” remarked Scott. “The venues on this tour are a mix of d&b J-Series, V-Series, Q-Series and VP-Series as well as L-Acoustics K2 and even Nexo GEO S12.
“All systems are adequate for the room with ample headroom and most have been deployed and tuned well. This is even more critical in these touring times as flights are being delayed and cancelled all the time, causing delays to scheduling and sound checks. I am very grateful to walk into good sounding systems without the need to “fix” anything and only EQ’ing for taste – which is usually only a minor notch or two.”
Scott says that there is a lot of trust from Short Stack when it comes to mixing their live performances and he always takes the approach of trying to deliver the sound of the album while allowing space for a live feel and spontaneity. Although the band do mix it up a little every night and is awesome at engaging their audience so trying to mix clinically or overly structured is not the best way forward. No scene mixing with these guys. Live on every fader pushing and pulling what is working or not working on any given night, keeping the melodies and hooks leading the charge.
Scott is touring an Allen & Heath D-Live CTi1500 surface and CDM32 stage rack. The surface houses a DANTE card and the stage rack houses a GIGACE card. The GIGACE card allows for a single CAT line to split and gain share head amps with the touring Allen & Heath SQ5 at monitors. The CTi1500 & CDM32 both come in under 23kg in their welded aluminium road cases which are critical for cost-effective fly date touring and allows for consistency across the venues.
“The D-Live sounds great and has a ton of features built-in so I do not have to carry any additional rack gear or run a bunch of plug-ins, allowing me to keep things pretty straightforward,” added Scott. “The band is doing all the work from stage allowing me to balance things musically and embellish to taste, with the band running some stereo tracks for synth lines, bass drops etc. but mostly it is a straight-up four-piece rock band. I am running input channels into 3 subgroups drums, instruments and vocals with associated FX going to those same subgroups. I use mainly the DBX160A emulation for input channels with the exception of the LA2a emulation on bass guitar and the A&H Opto vocals. Most groups are running the SSL mix buss emulation just tapping a little.
“The coolest thing I have going on is that I am running an A&H IP8 fader wing which is networked into the CTi1500. This gives me an additional 8 motorised faders which make the little board feel a lot bigger. I have my DCAs on the fader wing and can “DCA spill” onto the surface. This makes for a very fast workflow on limited faders.”
The whole set-up comes in under 24 channels allowing Scott to easily tour mics and be very self-sufficient.
Microphones
Kick in – Shure BETA91A
Kick out – Audio D6
Snare top – Shure SM57
Snare bottom – Beyer M201
Hats – SE8
R1 – SE V-BEAT
R2 – SE V-BEAT
Floor – SE V-BEAT
OH’s – SE8
Bass DI – Radial J48
Bass mic – Shure BETA57
Guitars L – Sennheiser E906
Guitars R – Shure KSM32Radial
BV’s – Audio Technica AE6100
Lead vox – Sennheiser G4 wireless with SE V7 capsule
Chris Braun is at monitors and is running wedges for all band members, using in-house monitors and supplementing these as required. Shaun (lead vocals) is also using IEMs running from a Sennheiser G4 system on Shure SE535PRO generic earbuds. Bradie on drums is also using wired IEMs straight from his drum pad for adding click.
This is all being run from an SQ5 split from the FOH rack and gain-sharing head amps with Chris running a small WAVES server for some specific FX mainly for Shaun’s in-ears.
“Our biggest challenge at the moment is reliable flights to get us to our venue locations on time as cancellations and delays seem to be commonplace these days,” said Scott. “So touring FOH/MON boards is really helping to get things set very fast each day and keep things consistent. The shows are selling well with almost all dates sold out and the audience is jumping. It is such great energy and hearing the entire audience singing each song adds an incredible vibe to the shows.”
Photos: Scott Mullane, Darcy Goss
