Sound Engineer Tom Moore started working with G Flip in 2018 on a small venue run, playing the likes of Workers Club in Melbourne and Oxford Art Factory Gallery Bar in Sydney. Back then, Tom was doing all of the jobs – FOH, monitors, tour manager and driver.
“As we’ve added members to our crew, I’ve lost some of those jobs, but have recently come back to take on the tour manager role again alongside FOH audio,” he explained. “I’ve done most of G’s shows in Australia, USA and Europe since then.”
When it comes to live sound, G wants all the sounds of the album, but with a live energy. This is achieved pretty naturally with the live drums and guitars – the trick is to make the playback sound like part of the band as well.
“I use a lot of sidechaining on the playback to get it to sit right and not too obvious,” Tom said. “The album is called Drummer, so of course there are lots of big drum sounds and a big central drum kit. Including the downstage Toms, there are about 26 channels of drums.
“I try to get the show to sound big and powerful, whilst still sitting around 98dbA/110dbC on average – but it’s very dynamic so there will be some moments at 85dbA and others at 105dbA! Rational Acoustics SMAART always open at FOH showing me timed averages, RTA and spectrograph.”
The PA systems were in-house on this tour with Tom touring a pair of L’Acoustics 108p as FOH near field. This helps him keep his mix referenced between venues and allows him to hear all eight talk mics during the show.
The show utilises two DiGiCo SD12-96s sharing an SD-Rack on HMA fibre loop, clocking at 96khz, supplied by Eighth Day Sound. Both Tom and monitor engineer Ryan Hansen are long-term DiGiCo users and decided to stay on the platform for a number of reasons.
“A big thing for me is availability – being able to source another console if one goes down, or in the case of our Cairns and Perth shows, the ability to replicate consoles from local vendors,” commented Tom. “DiGiCo is seemingly available everywhere so it gives me some confidence. It also gives us endless routing flexibility and I have gotten used to the Waves integration with Touch & Turn also. The fibre loop lets us run talks and shouts as well as an IEM mix for the LD.”
Tom also has a few fun toys out at FOH including a Waves Extreme Server, SSL Fusion that sits across his “music” bus, adding some saturation, EQ & width, Neve 4045 for G’s two vocal mics (main RF and drum vocal) to help clean the signal and a Lake LM44 for PA drive, running AES from the console and then can go analog or AES into the venue drive system.”
Unlike most drum vocals, this one is also the lead artist and Tom says that he has done a lot of work over the years to get it right. Both of G’s mics hit a channel of the 5045 and then into a group that has a Waves insert on it – Scheps Omni channel doing most of the work here with an F6 to assist.
“There are moments in the set where the players swap instruments so I’m pretty heavily snapshotting to keep it all in check with different playing styles,” said Tom. “G is on the kit quite frequently and plays very differently to Ben (Ellingworth). I snapshot some of the dynamics to assist with the different styles of playing. Using Roland triggers as a sidechain to my gates means that they always stay clean and consistent no matter who is playing.
“G can be very spontaneous with guests and random things throughout the show. At our second Melbourne show (The Forum) G got tattoed live on stage during one of the songs!”
Microphones comprise a mixture of Shure (Beta98, Beta91), Telefunken (M82), DPA (4099), AKG 214’s and SE Electronics (V7x, SE8) on the drums and Radial JDX DIs for both guitar amps.
“Most importantly it’s a DPA2028 capsule on G’s wireless and it’s a Telefunken M81-SH for the drum vocal,” added Tom. “Over the last few years, we’ve tried so many drum vocal mics as it’s a really important part of the show and we seem to have settled on the Telefunken. To me, it’s the mic that has the most natural (and forgivable) cymbal bleed, whilst keeping G’s vocal nice and rounded.”
All RF is Shure using PSM1000 and Axient. It’s all IEMs, a mix of UE and JH ears, aside from a stage sub for the bass player and a Porter & Davies BC2 on the drumkit.
Tom reports that the whole tour was a great success, mainly due to the amazing crew behind it, and adds a big shout-out to Lost Motel for tour management and direction.
Photos: Jess Gleeson, Ian Laidlaw
Touring Crew List:
Tour Direction – Lost Motel
Management – Future Classic
FOH/TM – Tom Moore
Monitors – Ryan Hansen
PM/Promoter Rep – Nathan D’Agostino
Playback/Stage Tech – Perry De Gennaro / Toby Lee (Sydney/Newcastle)
Lighting – Hamish Lee (Colourblind)
Drummer – Ben Ellingworth
Bass – Michael Belsar
Guitar – Fernando Navaro
Audio Vendor – Eighth Day Sound
LX & Staging Vendor – MPH
