Describing the usual routine of the 3-piece band, engineer Daniel Paine explains that “it’s mainly vocal and guitar through the wedges, and it’s extremely loud, one of the loudest mixes on stage for monitoring that I’ve ever come across, which was partly the reason for going with the N-12s; they’re so stable and have so much headroom. We did a measurement at 110dB at the vocal mic, which is amazing.”
“We’ve been experimenting on this tour. Keziah’s guitar sound is actually louder out of the wedges than his backline sound in some situations, so it’s very important to get the tone correct. What we’ve been able to achieve using the N-12s is the equivalent of tilting his guitar amps in front of him. Because the wedge is flat enough sounding for me to do whatever I want with it, we can replicate not only the tone, but the volume too; I’ve got a load of bottom end in there, yet I’ve also managed to get the cut from the vocal without it sounding too harsh. In honesty, I am entirely gobsmacked at how stable the N-12s are at high volume. We get no feedback issues whatsoever.”
For most of the shows, Daniel has set up two pairs of 45°N-12s for Keziah, using an ‘inner and outer’ configuration. Each pair is physically connected together, using an ingenious magnet system. (Guest artistes meant the set up changed for Keziah’s two shows in Paris, at the Bataclan, which is where the photographs were taken.)
“The original configuration was stereo, two per side, but now I run them ‘two in two out’ which allows me to focus the microphone sound primarily on the two ins, and when he steps out and around I can give him the vibe of the band. The vocals come out of both, but when he is at the mic, the vocals are really cutting through the guitar.”
“We also use one pair of wedges for the bassist; for him, I am using them in a traditional L/R, angled in wedge, and that’s very loud too. Both of them like a dry sound in the wedges which is always good.”
“We have PS15-R2s on stage as sidefills. My sound company, Spin Audio, has a lot of the PS-15s, – so I thought it was a logical step to use them as wedges too. But I’ve discovered the big difference in using the N-12s is the massive jump up in stability when you’re at high levels. It’s without doubt the least volatile wedge I’ve come across.”