FOH engineer Joe Vegna chose the Waves eMotion LV1 Live Mixer and Waves plug-ins for his outing with Swedish Stonemountain Orchestra at the Gullbranna Festival in Sweden, and then at venues in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Örebro, Jonköping and Kungsör later in the year.
‘The Stonemountain Orchestra is a complex beast to tame,’ he says. ‘I was looking for a console that sounds amazing and is also small enough to actually tour with when going into smaller venues,’ he says. ‘My good friend Rompa (FOH, Ronny Bernstein), who tours with the rock band Europe, has been using the eMotion LV1 for years and raves about it, so I thought I’d give it a go on a tour I did with Peter Jöback. And, wow, it did not disappoint. That tour was very challenging, but with the LV1 I could do things that no other console can.
When it was time to plan the Stonemountain Orchestra tour, he got together with monitor engineer Sebastian Wennergren to see if it could be done on the LV1 system.
‘This band is very demanding, and everything has to sound absolutely perfect, both in the PA and all IEMs,’ he says. ‘The LV1 fit the bill and, again, did not disappoint.
‘Another benefit,’ he continues, ‘is that any of the eight plug-in slots can be sidechained individually. For example, on the bass I can have one compressor that reacts to the actual bass, another that reacts to the kick, and, if needed, a third one that reacts to the cowbell. Very flexible. And since I quite often run both FOH and monitors for different bands, it’s really cool that I can have different delay groups for different outputs. This means that I can have the latency very low in IEMs while having it a bit higher for the PA where it doesn’t matter as much.’
The brevity of set-up, especially when visiting festivals, has proved a further appeal: ‘The build time for FOH is less than a minute, and the footprint is about 50x50cm. I don’t know if there is another system with this power that can match that. And when the show is done, I just close my Peli and roll out before anyone notices who stole their coffee – it was me…
‘Moreover, since the LV1 system is modular, you can really tailor your set-up to fit your needs. You can run everything on a laptop or hook up a touch monitor, or choose to use one or two Waves FIT Controllers. Also, you can have a case with internal IO, or not. It’s really fun to see how everyone has their own way of building this. There are some really creative and amazing LV1 set-ups out there.’
‘One thing that Waves has done really well is the ease of use when networking,’ he says, ‘I have a lot to learn about networking, but I never encountered any issues with it on the LV1. During the Stonemountain Orchestra tour, we successfully connected nine devices via the SoundGrid network, and it functioned seamlessly. The only time there has been an issue was when I was overthinking things and tried to come up with a complex routing solution. After an hour of scratching my head, the solution was one button away and could not have been simpler. I’m not used to things being easy in networking.
‘There are 14 musicians on stage, and they like to have guest artists. So we run 15 stereo IEMs. Starting from the stage, we have around 50 inputs, all connected to the FOH console where I run a 64-channel eMotion LV1. From there I share all the boxes with my monitor engineer, who also has a 64-channel LV1 mixer up on stage, mixing four wireless IEMs and eleven wired IEMs. We actually use the two headphone outputs on the Ionic 16 since they sound really clean and nice.
‘I send anywhere from two to ten stereo outputs to feed the PA, subs, front fill, centre, side fills and so on. The whole system has a capacity of 70 inputs and 58 outputs. To top it off, we record every input and output. The recorded inputs are used for virtual soundcheck while the recorded outputs are mainly for troubleshooting. Additionally, they can also be sent to any standing musician who may want something to practice to.’
The LV1’s integrated plug-in workflow also helps with his workfolw: ‘Since a lot of the sounds on the album were created using Waves plug-ins, we can easily bring those effects out on tour. Things like a stereo effect on the bass, a specific delay and vocal effects. These things are of course not do or die; however, they certainly contribute to making a positive impression on the band and the artist. Being able to faithfully recreate the sounds they are familiar with from the studio can enhance their overall experience.’
Among Vegna’s must-have plug-ins is the Magma series (Magma Tube Channel Strip, Magma Springs, Lil Tube, BB Tubes): ‘The Magma series offers great tone boxes that kind of bring the instrument closer in the mix. I use it for bass, vocals and sometimes even on the master bus. You have to be careful though, so you don’t overdo things with these plug-ins. A little goes a long way. And sometimes, you can overdo things! Finally, for anyone who’s just getting started and has a hard time grasping the concept of compression, Waves has the solution: Renaissance Vox. One parameter compression. Boom! Done!
‘For me there are two things that can never be compromised – sound quality and reliability. When it comes to these, the eMotion LV1 has proven to be second to none. It gives both me and the artist the confidence to deliver the best possible concert experience for the audience.’
