Some of Australia’s best musicians united to celebrate the work of iconic English rock band, Pink Floyd.
2023 marked the 50th anniversary of Pink Floyd’s seminal album, The Dark Side of the Moon, and to celebrate, The Future Factory created Pink Floyd’s Evolution concert tour.
At FOH was Michael ‘Smasha’ Pollard who earlier this year had toured the country with the Zeppelin Unledded tour that featured some of the same musicians and had the same promoter.
“I work regularly with the drummer Haydn Meggitt (Fools, King Canyon, Lost Ragas, Kate Ceberano, Ross Wilson), musical director/guitarist James Ryan (Ross Wilson, King Canyon, Badloves, & many more) and bass player Kit Riley (Badloves, Ross Wilson, King Canyon),” said Smasha. “As the core band for Ross Wilson, which is my main gig, I know their sounds and what they need on stage in monitoring to do their thang. So with Ross on a winter break – it was the perfect time for the team to jump onto this project.”
The band also featured Pete Mitchel on sax and guitar (Melbourne Ska Orchestra, Bustamento, Bomba), Roger Mason on synths and keys (Models, soundtrack composer) and rounded off by the incredible vocal talents of Olivia Nathan and Susie Goble (they have both worked vocals for many acts).
Smasha was left to his own direction and decisions for the show, however,r he had discussions with musical director James Ryan regarding the mix vibes from earlier 70s era Floyd, both studio and live.
“My approach was to allow the dynamics of the arrangements to reinforce the energy of the music,” he said. “The band gave me a lot of very good structure dynamics, particularly with the vocal content. I built an off-line show file, then attended rehearsal which allowed the show advance and desk file to be updated before our first show (Cairns Entertainment Centre). That first soundcheck was my opportunity to build the Scenes song-by-song and tweak some production automation to assist each song’s identity … mostly mutes, FXs, and dynamics.”
The tour utilised in-house ‘stacks’n’racks’ and with the venues a mixture of entertainment/performing arts centres and theatres, the systems did vary naturally however they all provided enough coverage and headroom to deliver this style of production.
“I feed console matrix to systems with L, R, sub, fill as the most common outs,” Smasha said. “My subs are fed via channel Aux which I find offers the ideal control of the sub energy – allowing me to push and pull the bottom of the mix to build some drama and energy through the show. I must also shout out to the venue techs – who all made a difference to each day with smooth set-ups, advance docs considered and positive attitudes during the day.”
Bunjil Place (Narre Warren) and Melbourne Recital Centre (Elizabeth Murdoch Hall) came out as Smasha’s favourites for the resulting show, in terms of overall production quality, lighting and AV setup.
Smasha toured a fly kit, courtesy of Travers Chesney Audio Services, that comprised an Allen & Heath dLive CTi1500, CDM32 stage rack and a quad rack of Sennheiser G4 IEMS.
“Trav’s kits are ready to hit the road and flights with solid padded cases, all the required accessories plus weights printed on the case – all the small things that make each setup and pack-down smooth,” added Smasha. “I was really happy with the dLive choice – just the fly weight (23KG) in a case is remarkable and so easy to lift into FOH ops when compared to many other options.
Smasha used the groups on the d:Live to glue together the mic elements, making full use of the dynamic EQ and multiband comps. Channel processing included compression from a variety of FET, Opto and VCA modelled comps. The input preamp Tube modelling option was used extensively to bring some additional tonal flavour to the mix.
Smasha mixed mostly on DCAs using the scene recall and softkey options to further mix control.
“I enjoyed using the Allen & Heath PSE (Primary Source Expander) to manage some spill on open mics,” he commented. “Trav did load a Waves card onto this dLive, however, I only used it as a Virtual Soundcheck IO as I did not feel the need to add further Waves plug-ins. I ran ProTools for DAW record and playback … but I’m keen to explore the new Harrison LiveTrax and its Allen & Heath integration. The surface and mix rack was also running V2.0 – which was mostly smooth, bar a screen freeze moment and a bug in the One-Mix iPad software that lost the custom layers when re-opened.”
Smasha toured all but three vocal mics (used house B58s) for backing vocals. The main vocals were Sennheiser e945s, drums were his usual favoured selections between Audix (D6), Sennheiser (e914s, e904s, e901), Audio Technica (ATM450) and Beyerdynamic (M201s).
“A feature of the Floyd set is Roto Toms which I miked using Shure B98s from underneath and it sounded fab!” said Smasha. “I used clamps and claws for most mics except vocal booms, which kept to stage layout clean and helped the rear projection to be the star instead of stands.
“Guitars and bass came from modelling pedals, which sounded amazing and importantly consistent from show to show. James Ryan achieved some spectacular patches that met the original sounds and then some with additional fun within the stereo field. No amps or monitors on stage provided me with a very clean input signal allowing FX and processing to output a mix that was very close to my expectations every time.”
Roger Mason submixed his keys, synths and playback via an Allen & Heath CQ 18T mixer which he toured and this worked well, reducing the amount of micromanagement Smasha had to do with electronic sounds playing a significant part of these iconic songs. Click came to FOH then Smasha mixed it back to IEMs as required – however much of the show was free from click-baring some segueways and intros.
The band was all on IEMs that came via the touring dLive at FOH via the CDM32 mixrack. Roger Mason (keys) and Haydn Meggitt (drums) were on hardwired packs. The remainder were on Sennheiser EW G4s. iPads were available around the stage for mix changes via the OneMix app.
“Despite some custom IEMs within the band, everyone ended up using KZ IEMS with Comply tips defying all logic concerning price versus performance … go figure!” added Smasha.
There were no LX or AV ops on the tour and the promotor provided projection content to go behind the band. Each venue required a house tech to build a light show and run the projection which worked a treat but did require the same conversation to be repeated as to the brief and cues. Smasha notes it was interesting to see how the lighting was interpreted each show given the different ops.
“It was a fantastic collection of musicians/humans – that makes all the difference with the trial of long days, travel fatigue and a small crew,” concluded Smasha. “But everyone worked well together. After this, Ross Wilson & the Peaceniks will return to keep us busy through to the end of the year and beyond, plus some other projects in between.”
Smasha will also be involved in some practical training at RMIT University through August with the Collide Project. This will bring bands into a TV Studio to perform with students operating lights, cameras and audio including monitors, FOH and record. The project will then be mixed by Sound Production students in Dolby Atmos.
