Nick Cave’s recent stadium tour saw Barak Koren (Ilse DeLange, Mell & Vintage Future, Marco Borsato) installed at FOH with a Waves SoundGrid Rack running plug-ins for his Avid Venue S6L console,

‘I have been using Waves plug-ins for the past 15 years, and plug-ins play a major role in my sound,’ he says. ‘I found that the Avid S6L’s sound and workflow, combined with Waves plug-ins integrated in the -operating system/surface is very impressive and easy to access.’

Waves’ SoundGrid Rack for Venue enables live sound engineers to run Waves plug-ins directly within Avid’s Venue S6L mixing console, with tactile control from the console’s surface knobs. The SoundGrid Rack is a plug-in that runs within the Venue S6L environment and loads up to eight SoundGrid-compatible Waves plug-ins per instance. All standard Venue plug-in features apply, including Config and Show modes, delay compensation, snapshot automation and detailed tactile control of plug-in parameters.

‘I find that using the Waves SoundGrid Rack for Venue software enabling Waves plug-ins to run integrally on the S6L mixer/console, adds a wide selection of tools and colours to my mix that I cannot get when working with any other mixer,’ Koren says. ‘The ability to control, save, manage and automate the plug-ins/chains/racks within the mixer’s OS is a huge benefit.’

Koren’s set-up is based on a 32-fader Venue S6L surface, integrating Waves SoundGrid Rack for Venue, two Waves Extreme SoundGrid Servers and additional outboard – an API 2500, two dbx 160As, two Empirical labs EL8 X Distressors, a Yamaha SPX 2000, LEX480L, an Eventide H3000 and a Lake LM44.

‘I find that the Primary Source Expander (PSE) is a perfect tool for mixing live sound,’ Koren continues. ‘It reduces stage bleed and sensitivity to feedback when a mic is idle by automatically lowering mic levels between musical phrases. PSE is a smart, handy tool that I use to treat quiet instruments on loud stages. I use the F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQand the C6 Multiband Compressor on vocals and acoustic instruments. These two plug-ins help me maintain tonality and a dynamic range, without the need to “filter out” using EQ.

‘I use the DeEsser and Sibilance plug-ins on vocals. These allow me to maintain high frequency content without the need to take it out of the PA system, since all PA systems tend to push the high end in order to maintain HF over distance. I find the latter to be unnatural on vocals, and therefore use these two plug-ins to control HF content. I use the H-EQ Hybrid Equalizer on almost all instruments. It sounds amazing and gives me the option to toggle between creative and corrective EQ.

‘Another favourite is the Scheps Omni Channel – I mainly use the preamp (thump/saturation) to get an analogue feel/punch/distortion. I also find the Gate/Expander to be a very powerful tool as well as its DS2 section.

‘For compression, my choices are the PuigChild Compressor and the CLA76. H-Delay Hybrid Delay and the Manny Marroquin Delay are two delays that make the instruments ‘move’ in the mix. The dbx 160 Compressor/Limiter is my go-to bus compressor. It’s just a fast and great sounding compressor. The threshold control, in combination with its mix control, makes it quick and easy to find the right setting on a bus. And of course, the Scheps Parallel Particles for synth/electronics and when you look for something but don’t know what… It sparks up creativity and offers unpredictable solutions.

‘Thanks to Waves, I can smoothly and confidently recreate the analogue sound of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds in the digital domain and enjoy the benefits of working with the Avid S6L, while having the advantage of easily using integrated essential Waves plug-ins.’

More: www.waves.com