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"301 Studio had a Neve board, and so a standard chain for recording electric guitar was: guitar amp into a Neve 1084 EQ and then into a Urei LA3A compressor, and that gives you a great guitar sound. That's always in the back of my mind, no matter what I'm mixing. They've all got their own tone, and an LA3A is different to a Pultec. "A compressor isn't just something to control dynamics, for example. "I was trained on SSL G- and K-series consoles and old Neve boards with 1084 EQs, and all of that had a big impact on the way I think about mixing,” explains David. Nevertheless, eventually he was tempted to try it on the desk's inserts, as this allowed him to use the high-quality UAD plug-in processors instead of the venue's equipment. So with the Apollo I have a dedicated unit that is doing the audio processing, and that's no different to having a digital reverb with an on-board DSP chip.” Inserting Plug-insĪt first, David had his Apollo routed into the FOH desk's effects return path, so that if the Apollo hardware ceased to work, the audio signals from stage would still pass through the FOH desk. That's not a situation I like, because if your computer goes down, a big part of your show is gone. Photo: Niall Coffey"You can do a similar thing with Waves MultiRack Native, but once it hits the A-D converters it goes into a MacBook at FOH for processing. After that, if you don't need to control or change anything, you can literally rip the Firewire cable out mid-show and audio is still going to pass.ĭavid Williams sets up before a gig. The third thing that really sold it to me is that, although it connects to my computer via a Firewire cable, the only thing its Console application does is check for the plug-in licences when you boot up, and load the plug-in routing and channel settings for the session. You are only dealing with 2ms internal delay, which is similar to what most digital consoles give you from A-D converting to processing, to spitting it back out into the analogue world. "Then a really big thing for me is its low latency. Ultimately, it boiled down to three determining factors: "Firstly, you get a consistent high-quality sound every night,” he explains. "I had my Apollo sitting on my desk and thought that it might solve the problem, because I could pre-program it with three different drum and vocal reverbs and a delay, and fire them up at venues instead of having to dial them in every day on different units.”īefore taking the Apollo out live, David did a lot of research to determine whether or not it would be reliable enough. It's not such a problem using digital boards because I can usually pre-program a file and load it onto the board as a preset, but the O'Brother tour was pretty small, so for the majority of it we'd be in venues with analogue consoles and hardware effect units like the Yamaha SPX 900, 990 or TC Electronic M-One. A delay cue is a simple tap-tempo change, but I wasn't sure I'd have time to set up all the reverbs for different instruments and song sections.
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The guy who mixed their last record used a ton of different delays and reverbs, and as I was preparing for that tour, I was wondering how to do all the changes. "It started with a band called O'Brother, from Atlanta, Georgia. "The Apollo was something that I bought for the studio but decided to take on the road,” says David.
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The most significant piece of studio gear that David uses live is the Universal Audio Apollo Firewire audio interface, which is a 1U hardware host for UAD plug-ins, remotely controlled by a software mixer called Console.ĭavid's Apollo is the eight-in, eight-out quad-core model fitted with four DSP chips, and he runs it at 96kHz for shows.
It wasn't long before he decided to bite the bullet and start taking some of his studio gear into the live environment, and he hasn't looked back since. At the same time, he was taking on a little live-sound work at small venues, but became frustrated with the limitations imposed by the gear he was using.
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"It's now feasible to use good microphones, plug-ins that emulate 1176 compressors and Neve gear, and do all kinds of crazy things to sound that, until recently, you could only do in a studio.”ĭavid's original dream was to become a studio engineer and producer and, after working as an intern at 301 Studio in Brisbane, Australia, he began investing his hard-earned cash in some professional recording equipment. "It's a really exciting time for live sound, and I think that is one of the reasons why I have continued doing it rather than recording,” says David Williams, live sound engineer for progressive punk act La Dispute and other bands such as Title Fight, Deer Tick and O'Brother. Front-of-house engineer David Williams talks to SOS about why mixing with a DSP audio interface is worthwhile, despite the dangers of using a laptop on stage.
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