With the likes of Steve Vai, The Cult and Black Label Society among his credits, FOH engineer Scott Pearlman is now using Waves MultiRack SoundGridand plug-ins on the Stone Temple Pilots tour.
‘I started working with Waves in 2008 and 2009 while on tour with Five Finger Death Punch,’ he recalls. ‘I had a few plug-ins on the console and I had seen my peers such as Greg Price, Ken ‘Pooch’ Van Druten and Brad Madix using them, getting great results and redefining how we mix. Then I did an Ozzy Osbourne tour with Greg Price as FOH, and at that point I was hooked. I had full access to Greg as he was mixing, and I had access to his Waves plug-ins as well. That was the game changer, and I went on to watch all the tutorials and read everything on WavesLive.’
‘When I took over mixing the Stone Temple Pilots, I was told we were using a Soundcraft VI3000, which was a gift from Live Nation for the tour,’ he continues. ‘The band was very specific about how they wanted to sound. The first thing was finding out how to add Waves plug-ins to the gig. A DiGiGrid MGO optical Madi-to-SoundGrid interface and a SoundGrid DSP Server were everything I needed for the show. My desk then had the capability to get the band sounding like it needed to, including easy set-up and reliability – unfailingly every night.’
Of his current favourite plug-ins, Pearlman comments: ‘I can’t do without the Waves SSL 4000 Collection, the Waves C6 Multiband Compressor, Waves MaxxVolume, and the Renaissance Maxx bundle. The plug-in that saves my day on this tour is the C6 Multiband Compressor, with an honourable mention going out to MaxxVolume. This combo gave STP vocalist Chester Bennington the clarity and volume he needed to sit in the mix. I stole Pooch’s vocal chain as a starting point…’
More: www.waveslive.com
