“[WORKING WITH OUR LADY PEACE] DEFINITELY FEELS LIKE A COLLABORATION,
AND I LOVE THAT. CREATING WITH THESE FELLAS IS A REAL GAS. THE BAND’S
SOUND – ESPECIALLY THE NEW RECORD – VARIES FROM HEAVY, STRAIGHT-UP
ROCK TO BIG, SPACEY BALLADS, SO HAVING A BALANCE IS KEY.”
-OUR LADY PEACE FOH ENGINEER SEAN PALMER
unit pretty hard and blending to taste. It
really lets you ramp up the heaviness of
the mix for some of the big rock tunes.”
He’s also got an Empirical Labs
Arouser plug-in – a digital clone of the
EL8 – with some features he’s enjoying.
“I will say, it’s hard to hear the difference
between the plug-in and physical unit,”
he says, “and the biggest plus to the plug-
in is it loads in stereo.”
This is Brody’s second run with Mat-
thew Good and the band, and he says
his mix for this tour is relatively straight-
forward. “I like the mix to be dynamic and
big, not just loud and abrasive,” he offers.
Brody credits the artists he’s mixing
for making his job a lot easier. “I’m really
lucky because my sources are all amaz-
ing,” he says. “The band is fantastic. They
all spend time honing their sounds, and
they’re all open to change. Maybe a gui-
tar just isn’t working out front, or we want
to try a different drum skin, amps on
stage, off stage, backstage… You name
it, they’re pretty much open to letting me
try it if the end goal is a better-sounding
show.”
The most unique challenge he faces
when mixing Matt Good is, well, Matt
Good. “His voice is big, loud, and amazing,
but he can produce so much in the low
mid-range that some shows, I find myself
working on it almost song-to-song, if not
verse-to-chorus,” he says. Sometimes, that
means really leaning into the multi-band
compression, and sometimes it means
having to insert a heavy high-pass filter
to get it sounding natural and cleanly
atop the mix. “It’s always rocking,” he says,
“but sometimes it takes some creative
massaging.”
The man mixing the other instantly
recognizable vocalist on the tour opted
for the SD12 as it’s quickly becoming his
favourite console. “The lads in Chessing-
ton [U.K.] have taken the best aspects of
the earlier S and SD Series consoles and
have really made an amazing tool,” he
says about the team at Digico HQ. “Cou-
pled with an SD-Rack at 96 kHz over Op-
tocore [fibre] and Waves integration, I’m
32 PROFESSIONAL SOUND
able to support what the band’s doing
on stage and give the fans a great show.”
Regarding the Waves integration,
Palmer says he never travels without the
Waves MaxxBCL hardware dynamics pro-
cessor. “It’s a really straightforward piece
– a very nice comp and limiter live across
my master bus.” He can also employ the
RBass element to inject some life into
an older PA if need be, though that’s not
necessary with the Meyer system.
Like Brody, he’s also using the Neve
5045 based on the recommendation of
his friend and fellow engineer, Chris Ka-
plinski. “Raine likes to come out into the
crowd sometimes, and the 5045 keeps
his Sennheiser 5200 series handheld and
DPA d:facto capsule under complete
control,” Palmer shares. “Coupled with a
C6 [multiband compressor plug-in] from
Waves and I’m a happy member of camp
front-of-house.”
Being that there wasn’t much time to
rehearse ahead of the tour, Palmer says
he and Maida will discuss the mix during
sound check from day-to-day. “It defi-
nitely feels like a collaboration, and I love
that,” he says. “Creating with these fellas is
a real gas. The band’s sound – especially
the new record – varies from heavy,
straight-up rock to big, spacey ballads,
so having a balance is key. I can vary the
reverbs to take up space, or bump up
some parallel compression to get some
separation and punch.”
Our Lady Peace’s typical set for the
tour includes an acoustic break, with
Maida, bassist Duncan Coutts, and gui-
tarist Steve Mazur on acoustic guitars
and drummer Jason Pierce on cajon to
perform stripped-down takes on the hits
“In Repair” and “Somewhere Out There.”
Palmer enjoys that segment as it offers
a lot of space in the mix to deliver a big
sound without high volume – “finesse, as
they say,” he chuckles.
SEAN PALMER ON A DIGICO SD12
(L-R) AARON BRODY, VER’S BEN MALONE & SEAN PALMER
AARON BRODY WITH AN AVID S6L
SIDE STAGE
At the monitor station, Matt “Sully” Sullivan
(Matthew Good) and Tod Cutler (Our Lady
Peace) are sharing an Avid SC48 console.
MATT “SULLY” SULLIVAN AT AN AVID SC48 MONITOR CONSOLE