Although Childish Gambino’s This Is America tour has been announced as his final trek, Donald Glover’s muli-facted career as a producer, director, writer, comedian, DJ, recording artist and live performer is – according to Variety – ‘on an upward trajectory that’s rarely seen for a musical artist, let alone an is-there-anything-he-can’t-do polymath who channels so much creativity into so many different projects.’

The same pursuit of creativity that places the Emmy and Grammy winner with the most relevant and important artists of our time carries over into the tech behind how his art is presented. Most recently, this included the use of L-Isa Hyperreal Sound technology for latest North American tour run.

Childish Gambino’s tour director, Christian Coffey, additionally serves as tour director for Run The Jewels. He first heard L-Isa when the hip-hop duo went out on Lorde’s North American Melodrama Tour earlier this year. ‘Lorde’s tour sounded incredible – really full and panoramic,’ Coffey recalls. ‘Childish’s management was at her Staples’ Center show and felt the same way, so that’s when our discussions began. Everyone wanted an immersive experience with a non-traditional arena show, and we felt that the L-Isa system could be a great fit.’

To widen the sonic panorama and add dimension to the 20,000-seat, sold-out arenas on this tour, the L-Isa Scene system provided by Britannia Row comprised three centre arrays of 15 K2 boxes flanked by a pair of 21-enclosure Kara arrays. For increased horizontal spread, four arrays of 15 Kara were flown, two per side, outside of the Scene system as an additional L-Isa Extension system, while two arrays of 13 K2 were deployed to provide coverage to the seats on the extreme sides of the stage.

Low-frequency coverage was delivered by two adjacent centre hangs of eight KS28 each, flown in a cardioid configuration, while an additional eight ground-stacked KS28 provided LF reinforcement to the near-field audience. Six Kara spread across the stage lip provided front fill, and the entire system was driven by LA12X amplified controllers housed in LA-Rak II touring racks.

‘The L-Isa system has the capability to improve the overall breadth and dynamic possibilities for a live concert experience,’ Coffey notes. ‘It can really widen and improve the aural experience in a multitude of settings and shows.’

Coffey also praised the people behind the technology. ‘Everyone at L-Acoustics has been excellent to deal with. They went above and beyond to provide assistance and help wherever they could to make sure that we had everything possible for a successful show.’

Mixing and monitoring

‘I am using a Solid State Logic L500 console, which goes into 18 mixes of Shure PSM1000 IEMs, one Clair Cohesion wedge, one Clair Cohesion drum sub, and various mixes to other departments such as show director, lighting, video departments,’ reveals the tour’s FOH/monitor engineer, Charles Izzo.

‘Running all those plug-ins through Waves MultiRack on my console is key, and my Waves SoundGrid set-up consists of two DiGiGrid MGB audio interfaces into a Mac Mini with a Waves SoundGrid Extreme Server. As far as analogue outboard gear, I have two Empirical Labs Distressors and a Bricasti M7 Reverb unit.’

Izzo notes that Glover’s vocals run from ‘sweet, quiet ballad tones, to full blast hip-hop in a matter of seconds throughout the performance’.

‘Because of that, I go first into my hardware Distressor to control the input. From there, I go to a Waves C6 Multiband Compressor, which is totally essential for a performer with multiple styles, in order to fine-tune the dynamic range of each frequency band. Then, out of the C6, I go into the NLS Non-Linear Summer analogue console summing plug-in, to really make the vocals pop.’

On the backing choir, he adds: ‘They are actually all on individual hand-held mics. Before I send them out to individual mixes, I run them all into a stem and use the SSL G-Master Buss Compressor to tighten them up and make them sound like a wall of voices. I also run them through the Renaissance Reverb to give them a nice big gospel sound.

‘Our drummer Chris Hartz is also a producer with his own studio, so he expects superior audio quality in his ears at all times,’ Izzo continues. ‘I have always been a big fan of Waves’ emulation of the API EQ and compression, especially on drums. I use the API 560 EQ on my kick and the API 550 EQ on my snares. Also, with my L500 console, I’m able to send stem groups to monitor mixes, which allows me to use some front-of-house techniques such as parallel compression. With that in mind, I use the dbx 160 compressor on my drum bus, and I send that to the band members who want a little extra punch and presence in their drum monitor mix. When it comes to drums, the Waves InPhase plug-in saves me! We have about fourteen or so open mics on percussion, all picking up the same sources from different distances. The ability to set one point as the focus and aligning all of the other mics with that – it’s such a game changer; instead of all of those inputs competing with each other, they all line up and work together as if they were a single input.’

‘Our bass player Thomas Drayton is a very dynamic player. To keep everything in control, I use the Bluey version of the CLA-76 compressor/limiter to keep everything in check and at concert level. It’s so transparent, Thomas doesn’t really notice that the compression is happening. On both guitar players, I use the Renaissance Axxcompressor. It’s super easy to use and just works perfectly on guitars. I also use the NLS Channel analogue summing plug-in on each player to warm them up and add some more analogue character to them. On keys, I use the Vitamin Sonic Enhancerin order to balance the character of each keyboard player in the mix. I also really like the way the Aphex Vintage Aural Exciter plug-in sounds on a Rhodes.

‘Doing monitors for the Childish Gambino band is a privilege,’ he summarizes. ‘They’re all exceptional players and lovely to work with. They also have excellent ears and, rightfully, high expectations from what they get in their IEMs and stage monitors. Running all these plug-ins on my console through Waves MultiRack is key to fulfilling those expectations – for them and for every artist I work for, whether at FOH or at monitors. This is the way I can give them the studio-quality sound they want during the show.’