Louie Michael has been touring with The Cat Empire, both nationally and internationally, for nearly three years. He says that ‘The Cats’ generally like their sound to somewhat match the records they produce, especially key effects such as saturations, slaps etc.
“They don’t like it overly clean, as they seem to draw a sonic influence from older records from South America,” Louie added. “Tape is a key player here.”
For the show in Sydney at the Enmore Theatre, the PA was the in-house L-Acoustics V-DOSC system, described by Louie as quite an old system but a great one nonetheless.
“Generally speaking, because of the venue sizes, we do use whatever house PA is in the venue,” he elaborated. “I couldn’t speak specifically on the number of boxes at the Enmore, but it seemed to be more than enough to do the job set for it.”
Generally, Louie has extensively used DiGiCo consoles for The Cats, though due to their EU trailer limits, he is now experimenting with the Yamaha DM7 series console.
“The benefits of this console for me are weight, as I can fly it around Australia, and its reliable Dante Network,” he said. “It’s a fantastic console, and I’m learning new and fun things each night, which is helping to improve workflow.
“It’s a wonderful act to mix. An eight-piece band with no click and tracks. All microphones and a wealth of musicianship. There are challenges (mostly ten open vocal mics on stage), but with the tools at hand in consoles, it’s nothing that can’t be tamed.”
Louie says that the most unique thing with this act in particular is the need to have the PA ready for when the band arrives. He usually achieves this by performing some offline playback to familiarise himself with the system and conducting a quick line check with his fellow techs to ensure everything is stable before opening the system up for the band.
“This particular run, we also have a dance floor with two wonderful Flamenco Tap Dancers who do performances with and without the band during the show,” remarked Louie. “Mic’ing this up and getting it above the band during the performance is always a bit of a challenge. It’s like turning on a giant reverb on the band. This requires mute groups and is used only when the dancers are on the board.”
Louie adds that The Cat Empire has a great mic kit they have built up over the past few years. On drums and percussion, they use Earthworks GEN 2 series microphones. On horns, they use Beyer Dynamic M160 ribbon microphones, and for vocals, they employ Shure Beta 58s. Everyone uses the same vocal capsules to achieve better mix cohesion when processing multiple vocals.
Stuart Padbury mixes monitors on an Allen & Heath dLIVE C1500, and the band owns and tours a CDM48 MixRack. TCE uses IEMs only, with most of the band on Shure Axient Digital PSM, and two members use hardwire packs. All the digital IEM connections are run over the Dante system. The crew is all on Shure Axient Digital PSM.
Louie’s Yamaha DM7C console was supplied by Travers Chesney Audio Services in Melbourne, who also supplied the dLIVE C1500 monitor console.
“The biggest challenge for this show is getting clear articulation from the dancefloor while holding the weight and intensity of the band around it,” commented Louie. “It all went great! Enmore is always a great venue for a show. Techs are fantastic, and the equipment is all well-maintained and good.
Photos: Jif Morrison
