Comprising Radiohead’s Thom Yorke contributing vocals, guitar, keyboards and bass and Jonny Greenwood on bass, guitar and keyboards, who are joined by Tom Skinner’s drums, keyboards, vocals and modular synthesiser work, The Smile really do know a lot about audio.
‘This band are heavily invested in their sound,’ confirms Britannia Row Productions’ Simon Hodge who serves as both Production Manager and FOH engineer for the live shows The Smile are currently undertaking. ‘There is a lot of sonic language on the records, and they expect this to translate to the live shows.
‘I’m very busy while mixing this show – spinning in a lot of live tape echoes, delays, spring reverbs and all manner of things,’ he continues. ‘Everything is analogue in the FX rack [apart from a Bricasti M7] so there are no presets. I spent some at the start of the tour with my FOH set-up and had the band listening to make sure that we were on the same page.’
His DiGiCo Quantum 338 accommodates more than 100 inputs for the core band and a further 40 when they play with an orchestra. ‘I have a Waves L2 across the record mix which sounds awesome,’ he says. ‘And I’m using some unusual gear including the Great British Spring – a real 4ft long old school spring reverb, a TC 1128 delay, the Gamechanger Light spring reverb, a Galaxy Tape Echo and perhaps most unusually, an Eurorack set-up incorporating a Rossum Electro-Music Panharmonium.’
The latter being a sound design tool that allows the user to analyse the spectral content of any audio signal. The band also employs some interesting microphones including Audio-Technica AE6100 hypercardioid dynamic vocal mic, a Neumann U47 FET on kick, multiple AKG C 414 XLS condensers and Electro-Voice RE20s.
With an intimate knowledge of what the band’s live shows require, Simon made the decision to de-centralise monitor world this year, as facilitated by Britannia Row Account Executive, Dave Compton.
‘We pushed fibre boxes out onto the stage and had small stage racks with SD Mini Racks, with D40 amps distributed on stage to try and keep copper cabling to a minimum,’ Hodge says. ‘This was a great success, and it saves on both time and weight/volume.
‘It’s interesting working with this band – the fact that they are fully invested in and connected with their sound makes it such a pleasure to mix. I love their music too, so I feel like I’m in a good place to be the one mixing it,’ he adds.
As part of a headline UKtour that saw PA go into Manchester Apollo and the Brighton Centre, the band played a highly anticipated London gig at Alexandra Palace, where the tour’s biggest system was required. Britannia Row’s Head of Engineering, Event Support, Josh Lloyd, designed the PA system, which comprised just two boxes of L-Acoustics’ L2 over a single L2D per side for the main hangs and a single L2D for each delay.
‘The L2 is a cardioid box, and it sounds great. It helps to get rejection on stage, and keeps it clean as the band uses a lot of open mics,’ Lloyd says. ‘The PA design may seem minimal – the band even noticed how small the system was – but the L2 performs beyond its size and weight, making it a flexible choice. There was no spill off the back of the box at all, and the band were happy.’
‘I have been an L-Acoustics fan since Christian Heil’s early line array boxes in the 1990s through to mixing Robbie Williams in stadia with the K1 for many years,’ Hodge offers. ‘When Josh first told me about the L2, with my Production Manager hat on I was particularly interested to see how it would save on rigging time and truck space.
‘However, as an engineer, I was absolutely blown away by how it sounds. The forward rejection is amazing, and I have never heard such control at lower frequencies. The Smile has quite a complex sonic footprint in the low mid and bass, so to have directional control in that area is hugely helpful.
‘The Smile’s Studio Producer, Sam Petts-Davies, attended the Alexandra Palace gig: ‘It sounded awesome; I was speechless myself at how good it sounded. Ally Pally is such a tricky environment to mix in, but I described our gig as sounding like an outdoor show…. which is a huge thing to say.’
‘Everyone plays multiple instruments very well and tends to move around the stage during the show,’ says monitor engineer Daniel Scheiman at a DiGiCo Quantum 7. ‘This means every performance is busy for me, and we have a lot of movement in the mixes.’
‘The band use a mix of IEMs and wedges. Jonny relies entirely on wedge mixes through d&b audiotechnik M4’s, while Thom and Tom choose Shure PSM1000 IEMs. In total, with tech mixes, we run eight in-ear mixes, seven wedge mixes, and a sub. In addition to these mixes, there are a few FX sends returning to the stage from the monitor console, as well as some returns from Simon at front of house.
‘Very clear expectations were established for these shows. The crew and equipment from Britannia Row have been fantastic and it’s been a pleasure to work on,’ he adds.
‘As Production Manager, I can say that Britannia Row did a great job for us and were always supportive and efficient at pre-empting our needs – if we do experience a technical failure, Britannia Row can deploy gear locally from wherever we are in the world. Ultimately, we felt very looked after, and it was easy to tie into Britannia Row for all our radio and RF licensing needs,’ says Hodge.
Taking in Germany, Italy, Greece and other countries this summer, The Smile will play their Live in Europe, 2024 tour from June onwards.
See also:
The RadioPhonic to be offered to modular fans
(BBC Radiophonic Workshop modular commissioned by Hans Zimmer)
More: www.britanniarow.com
