ML: When I think about what is the “right” console for a job, one of the things I’m looking for is that the console “comes to me” rather than me having to go to the console. The less time I spend clicking around a console trying to load a scene or find a setting, the more time I can spend paying attention to the artist, which is really what I should be doing.

It sounds like the little bits of automation you’ve set up really allow you to do that, keeping the relevant faders in front of you at all times, and streamlining the process of helping individual channels cut through the mix when needed. I’m always a big fan of creative technology applications to support the artist’s goals.

When dealing with different rooms and different systems, I try to make sure all the system/room related adjustments are being made in the system processors, so the mix doesn’t need to be rebuilt every night. How do you approach an unfamiliar room? How much are you finding the mix change night to night?

RoJ: I do the same; there’s very little I change in the mix from room to room, and ultimately the changes I make are related to how the room affects the source rather than the room affecting my output. Meaning if there’s some slap back that makes my drums messier or bleed louder, I may address that, but I won’t re-EQ any individual channels due to the room resonating. I like to think of the console output as the CD that we tune the PA to, we never re-EQ that reference track, but we do make the system work with it.

ML: That’s a really great way of thinking about it. Are you the system tech for this tour as well?

RoJ: We’re not carrying PA yet, not until the China run, so the system tech is the local PA tech for each festival or show, and then I end up being secondary.

ML: You mixed FOH for Tove Lo, one of my favorite pop acts. There’s a lot happening on stage between two different drummers, real drums, electronic drums, sample pads, and a backing track. How did you find room for all of that in the mix?

RoJ: Tove Lo was an incredibly busy show, but the sounds for the sample pads were all so well chosen, and the players were incredible. It came down to picking certain aspects of each sound to accent, so sometimes you might choose to have the attack of a live snare cut through and use the decay of a drum sample. The easiest way to do this in real time is through sidechain compression, so the live snare may be triggering a compressor on the sample pad. Or, if you’re really on it, you can trigger just a multiband on the sample, so the upper midrange of the attack from the sample is pulled back, but maybe some of the lows and high end is left in, to give the live snare more oomph.

Fortunately, the track on Tove Lo was quite light, just shakers, tambourines, and some key parts that had crazy sidechaining in them that would have been impossible to recreate live without some seriously complex routing between live audio and the keyboard itself. (Trust me, we tried hard.)

One of the more complicated things with the two drummers was making each kit sound unique but still fill out a similar portion of the audio spectrum. The sounds from the stage were unique, one kick was a 20-inch, one was a 22-inch so the tone and note were quite different, giving them a similar punch. Making it so that the audience could feel them both the same required some manipulation plugins like Avid Pro Subharmonic allowed me to get the same amount of 40 Hz and 60 Hz out of both kicks, and both kicks were routed to a single kick group so that they could be compressed together, so that if ever they hit both at the same time, they would be reined in.

It was the same for the snares – all four inputs were routed to a group so that overall they have the same kind of punch, and a single compressor can pull them together. The keys were incredibly well arranged with great sounds, so I didn’t have to do much there, and her vocal was fantastic – I just littered it with vocal FX, and she also had control of some of her own FX via a TC (Electronic) pedal.

ML: Thanks for your time. I encourage everyone to catch up with Ryan at ryanojohn.com.