SCORPIO SOUND SUPPORTS LATIN POP STAR SHAKIRA

—Yamaha PM4000 Consoles Survive Monsoons, Perform Admirably—

BUENA PARK, CA—For the past three months, a day at the office for front of house engineer Patrick Murray and suburban Boston (MA)-based Scorpio Sound has included burning sun, freezing cold, sub-par PA's, oversold shows, low voltage and consoles that can take on gallons of water.

Latin pop star and two-time Latin Grammy Award winner, Shakira.

"How shall I say this? International touring is always interesting," Murray says with a laugh, recalling the recently-completed 21-date tour with rising Latin pop star and two-time Latin Grammy Award winner, Shakira. The tour, in support of the artist's multiplatinum album Donde Estan los Ladrones (Sony), kept Murray and company busy with dates in Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, her native Colombia, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, plus San Diego, Anaheim and Miami.

In addition to Shakira, Murray has handled front of house duties for Miles Davis, Santana and Grover Washington Jr. Joining him was monitor engineer Craig Melvin, best known for his work with Latin superstars Gloria Estefan and Julio Iglesias, and technician Edmund Piotrowski III. A combination of experience and the old Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared" were key ingredients. "The production was supplied by local promoters. We carried no stacks and racks, so we were at their mercy," he recalls. "Fortunately, we had 10 days of production rehearsals at the James L. Knight Center in Miami and some setup/rehearsal days in Lima, Peru. We sort of knew what we'd be up against, so we wanted to carry gear that would work under extreme conditions."

Murray's front of house area consisted of a Yamaha PM4000 with 11 stereo modules and a Yamaha 02R digital mixer as a sidecar to cover Shakira's band, which included a keyboard player, drummer, percussionist, guitar, bass, and a viola player. Two background singers doubled on acoustic guitar and additional keyboards. "The 02R was originally an overflow board, but I ended up using all of its channels," he notes. "That included extra effects returns, a Tascam DA88 with drum loops, percussion and horn parts, plus audience mics, which I brought in to the sub-in on the 4K's matrix for a video feed. The two internal effects were used for drum reverbs. I could snapshot recall all the levels and pans, so it was a real lifesaver."

Scorpio Sound supported Latin pop superstar Shakira on her recent South American tour. The elaborate stage setup with one of two Yamaha PM4000 consoles.

Other gear included a TC Electronic M2000 for vocal reverb and TC 2290 for delay, Lexicon MPX-1 for the background vocals and PCM90 for percussion reverb, and several Sony HR-P5 multiprocessors. "The Sony's have great time delay effects, flanging and auto panning," Murray notes. Inserts included a Midas XL-42 preamp going through a BSS DPR-901 II parametric EQ and into a Summit TLA100 tube limiter for Shakira's primary vocal channel. Murray also ran a second vocal channel, with the Midas preamp going through half of a dbx 556 tube limiter. "The TLA is great—it's smooth, fat, warm and very transparent," he adds. "You can't really hear it compressing." Background vocals had a variation of the artist's vocal treatment, with another XL42 module for preamp and EQ, and a TL Audio C-1 stereo tube compressor at the insert point.

The crew removes the previous night's monsoon from the 4K. The board not only survived, but performed (almost) flawlessly.

Onstage, monitors included five mixes of Scorpio 2115 proprietary wedges, which contain a single 15-in. TAD and a single 2-in. JBL driver, powered by Crest 7001 and 4801 amplifiers with integrated crossover cards. EAW LA118 and SB850 provided drum subs and extra bottom end.

Shakira opted for Futuresonics in-ear monitors coupled with a Sennheiser SB3054F wireless system, while band members used a combination of the wedges and Futuresonics in-ear monitors driven by Shure PSM600 hardwire beltpacks. Effects included a Manley Labs Electro-Optical (el-op) Limiter with an inserted BSS DPR-901 II, a TC M5000 for vocal reverb, a pair of Lexicon PCM80's and a pair of Yamaha SPX990 multi-effects processors.

Melvin mixed on a Yamaha PM4000M, with a Midas XL-3 extender. "Craig wanted the 4K because the common mode rejection is one of the best, plus it has a built-in parametrics on all the output busses, which should keep it an 'A-board' for in-ear systems for a long time," Murray says. "He also knew they'd run on low voltage and would work in heat, cold—or the rain."

FOH engineer Patrick Murray after the monsoon in Montevideo, Uruguay.

He continues, "It hadn't rained in Uruguay for months and things were not properly covered, so of course, it rained. Both the house and monitor 4Ks took on water, but we emptied them out the next day, and they worked. In Guatemala City, a stage jumper grabbed the monitor riser tent pole, and water poured into the 4KM. Craig lost one VCA and one input channel, which worked fine the next day, thanks to the sun and a bunch of hair dryers!"

Murray's daily challenge was getting different PA systems to sound like a single entity. "We'd have three different local PA's—stage left would be from one company, stage right another, delays would be a third and so on. I saw every brand (and condition) of amps imaginable, so most of my day was spent getting everything running and in phase. Plus, most of the time, there simply wasn't enough PA to cover the house. It would look like someone had put several home stereo systems together! We were playing to crowds of 50,000 with PA's designed to cover 10,000 or less."

Another challenge, according to both Murray and Melvin, was the artist's vocal. "Shakira's fans are mostly girls, ages 9-16, who know all the words to her songs, sing louder than the band and PA and then scream in between each tune. It's like the boy bands in the states—I measured 112 dB of screaming at the front-of-house position at one point," he recalls.

"We had her on a Samson wireless. It's a handheld, not a headset—she wants it known that she sings every note live, and doesn't want to be lumped in with 'track acts.' The first element we tried was an Audix OM6, and then we switched to an OM5 because we needed a tighter pattern. Her vocal quality can really vary. She's very full voiced at times, especially when she's rocking. Then, she gets into this very 'throaty' thing when she's doing traditional Spanish music, and sometimes she literally whispers. The problem was, you could hear the band when she was off-axis, and you could also hear the fans in the front rows in her vocal channel, even when she was right on the mic. We ended up going with a Shure SM58 capsule because it gave us the smoothest response and cut out a lot of that extraneous noise," he adds.

"I don't think anyone really knew the scope of Shakira's popularity, and that, coupled with all the other things, affected everything, from logistics to performances—and she still has the U.S. to conquer," Murray says. "That keeps our jobs interesting. No matter how long you've been doing this, there's always something new to learn."

For more information on Yamaha 02R and PM4000, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Pro Audio & Combo Division, Commercial Audio, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622; telephone (714) 522-9011; e-mail info@yamaha.com; or visit www.yamaha.com/proaudio on the Web.

 

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