Dynamic Duo

“When I’m mixing I want everything to be heard,” Moore emphasizes. “This is country, so it has to have hair on its back, so to speak. And even though I have a lot of effects at my disposal, I don’t really like to use too many. These halls we’re in have plenty of reverb on their own, so the more you add the muddier things get. If I’ve learned anything over the years, it’s that you don’t want to overexcite any environment, and that’s especially true in this tour’s venues.”

Two steady hands manage monitors on this tour, more specifically those of veteran Marc Earp (yes, he’s an actual descendant of the legendary Wyatt if that has any significance, and it just may, all things considered) and Ben Rigby. With Earp pushing faders for Church and Rigby taking care of the rest of the band, both are using VENUE Profile consoles from Avid.

“All of our wired vocal mics are Heil PR 35s, while the RF vocal mics are RC 35s (on Sennheiser transmitters). Over the years I became accustomed to the usual Sennheiser and Shure offerings, but then one day I heard the Heil mics in Las Vegas and met Bob Heil himself. We’ve been using his mics since, and not a lot jumps out at you anymore. You notice the tonality changes, especially with our in-ear systems.”

“We pretty much use Heil mics on everything except for an SM81 here and there on drums and our crowd mikes,” Earp notes, providing a run-through of the show’s input scheme.

IEM systems on stage as well as those used by Earp and Rigby are universally Pro 18+ units from Ultimate Ears. Back on the input end of things, Heil PR 31 BWs are on guitar cabinets, while the drum kit relies upon a Shure SM81 condenser overhead, SM57s on snare top and bottom, and a PR 31 BW on piccolo snare. Toms are captured by Heil PR 28s, while the task of miking the kick drum is given over to a PR 48.

The kit is captured with a combination of Shure and Heil mics.

Keys are located at both stage right and left, with an assortment of Nord keyboards joining a Hammond XK-3 mounted in B3-appearing shells. Countryman DIs are used in both of these locations.

Further Precision

Playing an integral role within the monitoring scheme, crowd mics include Audio-Technica AT8035b shotguns and upstage SM81s.

Relied upon by the talent for both fill and ambience, Earp and Rigby utilize these mics to build their mixes so that spatiality remains true wherever a performer may be onstage, i.e., if Church walks upstage stage right, that portion of the crowd remains spatially accurate in his right ear.

For both Earp and Rigby, monitoring is a fairly stabilized environment. If they’re ever tossed a curve, it’s when guest artists arrive. This is not an uncommon event, and has brought additional talent to the stage, including Ray Wiley Hubbard, Glenn Hughes, Chuck Leavell, and Comer Ashley.

Scenes constructed during sound check on both Profiles have become an important tool at this juncture, providing a way for either engineer to quickly accommodate specific guests without having to worry about changing other elements in their mixes.

“It’s different out here every night,” Rigby concludes, “While some things stay the same, if that makes sense. Eric will go out of his way to play songs specific to a certain market. Like ‘Walking in Memphis’ or ‘Sweet Home Chicago.’ The fans all know the set lists, so he likes to keep them guessing a little when he can.

“For us, sometimes we wake up asking ourselves, ‘Where are we, Toledo?’ For the fans at each stop though, they’ve been waiting months, or maybe all year for this show. Once you realize that, you wipe the sleep out of your eyes and bring them the party they’ve been waiting for. That’s what it’s all about, and we have tons of fun doing it.”