THE CREW
TSO East Audio Production Crew
Front of House Engineer: Dave Wittman
System Engineer: Michihiro Tanakwa
Monitor Engineer: Tony Luna
Monitor Tech: Robert Taylor
Fly: Ken McDowell
Fly: Erik Swanson
TSO West Audio Production Crew
Front of House Engineer: Kurt Vanderhoof
System Engineer: Tom Carlson
Monitor Engineer: Chris Hoffman
Monitor Tech: Tommy Gragg
Fly: Ricardo Avila
Fly: Rick Roman
The Midas Heritage 3000 analog
mixing console sits at Front of
House at the ready, with the tour’s
electro-Voice x array loudspeakers
flown high above the stage.
Front of House engineer dave
Wittman jokes that he’s thinking of
switching to a digital mixing console
because he’s “running out of room”
on his Midas Heritage 3000.
all. Just dbx 160’s for vocals, bass, lead
guitar and piano. Everything else is
notched in off the Midas.
System Engineer, Michihiro (Michi)
Tanakwa handles the business of deploying the entire system. Wittman gives
credit where it is deserved. “Michi is
the best. He knows this system like the
back of his hand and there is no way we
could do without him. He will catch a
problem even before it occurs. He’s that
good. He’s both sharp and attentive!”
Bringing Moni Tor World
inTo THe digi Tal realM
Monitor Engineer, Tony Luna has toured
with KISS, 3 Doors Down, The Rolling Stones, Matchbox 20, Cheap Trick,
Metallica and many others. He loves to
talk shop and beams about new technology and ideas. His take on mixing monitors is a real delight as he took a break
between shows to sit down on the bus.
“The DiGiCo D5 I’m using is really
flexible – I like the way it’s laid out. It
works well for me. It’s got two solo busses and I think that’s really important.
I’m using 64 inputs and all the outputs
of the desk to drive a combination of
8 stage mixes of wedges and 13 stereo pairs of in-ears. I’m using a whole
bunch of different things… Shure
UHF-R mics, Sennheiser G2 IEM and
Professional Wireless Systems (PWS)
combiners with their helical antennas. This year for wedges we’re using
Electro-Voice Xw15 with Crown 36 x
12 with pip. It’s been interesting mixing
over the years – doing the same mix on
different manufacturer’s brands. I have
a good time using all of them.”
Using all the outputs on the D5 for
the monitor side, Luna has a variety of
models of in-ears to deal with and the
action never stops on a TSO show. “I’ve
been using Sensaphonics 2XS’s and I’ve
been mixing on Ultimate Ears UE7’s.
My guitar players have been using Ultimate Ears UE11 ambients. I find that
when I use the UE7’s, I have a good
basis of reality. The 2Xs units sound
great for the mixes I’m using those on.
I’m using Sensaphonics for the singers.
Most the musicians – with the exception of the keyboard player – are using
Ultimate Ears. The drummer is using
Sensaphonics – the 2XS.”
“For mics we’re using a lot of Shure
Beta 58’s. If we have something and Paul
O’Neal wants to do something else, if he
wants to change something, we change
it. The whole thing with the 58 is, in the
back of Paul’s mind, the 58 was the premier standard rock mic and he’s all about
trying to recreate this old school vibe.”
Luna has programmed the D5 with
25 snapshot for 31 songs. “If I don’t
have to change anything, I might leave
that snapshots in for another song,” he
explains. He changes mixes for differ-
