One of their generation’s premier rock bands, Cage The Elephant are best known and celebrated for their highly physical live performances. The stage, they say, is their home turf, where they are comfortable and unchained.
That’s clear from their 45-show US Neon Pill tour, which kicked off in Salt Lake City, with shows in Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and numerous other cities. What their audiences are able to experience this time sounds as close to the band’s recordings as possible, thanks to the inclusion of one of the first Fourier Audio transform.engine units to hit the road in the US on a major tour.
A Dante-connected server designed to run VST3-native software plug-ins in a live environment, the Fourier Audio transform.engine brings studio software to live sound and broadcast applications on a platform specifically designed for the rigours and complexities of live production. Cage The Elephant’s front-of-house engineer, Ashton Parsons, added the transform.engine to the control package for the tour, which includes a DiGiCo Quantum3 FOH console he’s piloting and a DiGiCo Quantum5 desk used by monitor mixer Patrick Moore, all provided by Clair Global.
‘The transform.engine was on my radar when it was first announced and I put in a request for it back in April when I was spec’ing gear for the tour,’ Parsons says. ‘And just before the first festival dates ahead of the tour — the first one was Hangout in Gulf Shores, Alabama in mid-May — Clair approved the software and hardware for touring. I am super grateful to have had it. So many audio nerds have come up to ask me questions about it on show dates and online once word got out that I had it.’
Parsons has been able to use almost his entire collection of preferred plug-ins, including the Fab Filter Q3 dynamic EQ that he’s applying to most of the guitars as well as the master bus.
‘I’ve also been using some of the Audioscape plug-ins, Brainworx/Plugin Alliance, and Sound Theory’s Gullfoss Live low-latency resonance-suppressor plug-in, because with this band, there’s a lot of crazy intentional noises happening on stage, and it’s keeping those in check,’ he says. ‘They’re a rock and roll band — there’s no click and they have a lot of guitar pedals the band is always changing their settings. There’s a lot going on in terms of tonality, so having the ability to process them using some more advanced plug-ins that previously hadn’t been available live has been fantastic. In addition, I’ve been able to make use of plug-ins that they used in the studio to recreate certain vocal effects for this tour, which they’ve been very happy with.
‘For a lot of modulation effects, or the specific slap-back delay/distortion combination that they used on the new record, being able to have their recording engineer send me the preset for that was great,’ he adds. ‘It’s a terrific tool to be able to play those new songs and the fans immediately feel familiar with it.’
Parsons says he’s looking forward to integrating Fourier’s new v1.2 Cuelist software, specifically allowing users to recall cues (snapshots) over a Midi connection from either a mix console or show-control software, in the near future, further enhancing those capabilities.
‘I’m still on transform.engine v1.0 software at the moment, as I got one of the first units that Clair shipped out after they were satisfied with the software being stable, back in May. I don’t like updating firmware mid-tour, just in case something goes awry, but I will be taking it out on the next leg of shows and I’ll definitely get it updated to v1.2. Having Cuelists will be awesome. I’m also looking forward to that functionality where I’m able to click the channel and the plug-in pops up on the screen at the desk with the snapshots and other parameters.’
As important, he says, is the support he’s getting as a new user on a new platform. ‘Fourier Audio’s support has been top-notch,’ he reports. ‘I’m able to have direct access to their knowledge base, and when any small issue or unknown has popped up, they’ve been able to get me fixed up in under an hour.’
More: www.fourieraudio.com
