PRODUCTION PROFILE: Imagine Dragons
Below: From FOH, LD Mitchell Schellenger used an MA Lighting grandMA2; The stage design included eight mirror wrapped LED towers that displayed video content throughout the show.
into the design effortlessly; it’s been a very nice upgrade for us. “The E219 is great as a sub; it has tonnes of output, nearly twice as much as the E218, our previously used model. The E219 is actually a unique sounding sub. For powering the system, we’ve been very happy with the Lab.gruppen amplifiers. The PLM2000Qs are very solid with the latest DSP built in and that’s been handy because we don’t have any processing out front, it’s all done inside the amps, which is an interesting feature.” SSE’s Sammy Murphy is Whaley’s PA Tech and “power guru.” He elaborated: “I can’t tell you how great it is to have somebody whose familiar with European touring to manage all of the different voltages going on with the transformers for the US power for the PA system. The backline and control is on local power, so he’s been brilliant and taken away a headache for sure!” FOH “As far as the Adamson system goes, I’ve been completely happy it. The new S10 sub boxes have totally impressed me; they are so consistent. This is definitely my first choice of rig,” added FOH Engineer, Scott Eisenberg. Mixing on an SSE-supplied Avid Profile, his 96-channel desk is utilising Waves plug-ins and a 128 channel Pro Tools Recording System.
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He commented: “I try to create a dynamic mix because the band themselves are very musical; its not all just one volume for the whole show. At times they’re really rocking out full speed and it sort of kicks your ass! At other times, it’s pretty intense and dramatic in the way it builds up. I really try to capture a wide range of sounds so that it doesn’t get stale or boring, especially on these long tours. I want to make the right impact for the moments that have huge drumming sounds all the way through to more subtle, stripped down acoustic guitar and vocals. This desk definitely lets me accomplish that.” Eisenberg joined the band when they had no crew three years ago and were playing small club venues. “They did their first headlining tour a couple of months later which was pretty huge,” said Eisenberg. “They were doing bigger clubs of up to 3,000 fans and it’s been non-stop craziness since then. It was cool being able to watch a band blow up like that. “We’ve been fortunate too that we have a similar vision of what we think their live music should sound like. For example, I’m a drummer myself and I don’t know if that blends into my mixing but we do tend to focus on having the drum beat as the backbone of what’s going on,” he enthused. On the UAC partnership, Eisenberg gave his thoughts: “We’ve not done any touring with SSE
before this, but they’ve done festivals with us, so it was really nice knowing that Sound Image and SSE were joining forces. For me, because I work directly for the band, I know that I’m going to feel that extra support when we travel here.” MONITOR WORLD Monitor Engineer Jared Swetnam also works for the band, and was brought on board by Eisenberg once the band’s production needed extra grew. “I was working in a club in DC when I got a call from Scott. He asked if I wanted to do a two-month run with a band called Imagine Dragons. I’d never heard of them at the time, and I don’t think many other people really had at that point. But that soon changed because two months has turned into almost three years! This band has definitely taken both mine and Scott’s careers into a different calibre of venues, touring and TV award shows. We’ve done everything you could think of with them over the last couple of years, and that’s been made really fun because the band is so easy to get along with.” Swetnam’s desk of choice for this tour echoes that of Eisenberg: a 96-channel Avid Profile console. “The band are very used to how this sounds, so because we’ve been non-stop, it made sense to not disrupt that. Avid make pretty solid consoles, so I knew I’d have a good