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All Access: fun. ‘Most Nights’ Tour

Capitalizing on a huge breakout year, the band fun. was out all summer on a Most Nights tour. Mix caught the band—Nate Ruess, vocals; Andrew Dost, keyboards; Jack Antonoff, guitars; Nate Harold, bass; Will Noon, drums; Emily Moore, acoustic guitar and keys—at the famed Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Calif., on September 6.

Photo: Steve Jennings

Capitalizing on a huge breakout year, the band fun. was out all summer on a Most Nights tour. Mix caught the band—Nate Ruess, vocals; Andrew Dost, keyboards; Jack Antonoff, guitars; Nate Harold, bass; Will Noon, drums; Emily Moore, acoustic guitar and keys—at the famed Greek Theatre in Berkeley, Calif., on September 6.

“I’m mixing the band on the DiGiCo SD8,” says FOH engineer George Reddy. “It’s got lots of handles and it sounds great! All my plug-ins are in the DiGiCo box, and I’m using Smaart 7 to measure the rooms. We’re also using Lectrosonics wireless. Our sound company is SoloTech and we have Jonathan Trudeau and Todd Hartman as our system techs.

FOH engineer George Reddy

Photo: Steve Jennings

“My first show with fun. was also my first show on a DiGiCo SD8,” says monitor engineer Dave Rupsch. “It has a lot of powerful features and a very rich, yet clean sound. Today’s in-ear monitoring technology is so good that a monitor desk’s sonic characteristics are more vital than ever; every EQ shift or trim adjustment is completely apparent. We are using eight stereo channels of Sennheiser G3 wireless for IEM transmitters, four channels of Shure UR-4 (main RF, spare, saxophone) and a Professional Wireless helical antenna and combiner. The unique piece is a TC Helicon Voice Live 2 vocal harmony pedal. It runs in-line with the main vocal and returns into the FOH and monitor desks via a stereo return. I really love the way this thing sounds and what it is capable of. Nate does a good job of monitoring it and making it react—he really plays it. “

Monitor engineer Dave Rupsch

Photo: Steve Jennings

“Nate is singing into a custom gold Shure SM-58 RF,” Rupsch says. “We are using a little of everything as far as IEM molds on stage: Andrew Dost uses Ultimate Ears UE-18s, Nate Ruess uses JH Audio JH-16s, Jack Antonoff uses Shure E-215 generic fits Emily Moore uses JH-7s, Nate Harold uses UE-10s, and Will Noon uses JH-10s.

“It can get a little tricky onstage with everyone using different molds and being able to calibrate mixes accordingly. Fortunately, I have my own molds for a lot of these models so I can accurately mix and reference for them.”

Meyer Sound P.A system at the Greek Theatre

Photo: Steve Jennings

“Jack Antonoff is currently using a special edition 2003 Vox AC30HWH [hand-wired head],” says guitar tech Derek Kern. “It’s miked by a Shure KSM 32 and a Shure Beta 56. His main speaker cab is kept in an isolated road case to keep stage volume to a minimum. His pedalboard consists of a Z Vex Fuzz Factory, Fulltone Fat Boost, Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamer, two Electro Harmonix Nano Holy Grails, and a TU-2 Tuner pedal. He is currently playing Epiphone Wilshire Phant-O-Matic guitars. To give Jack a bit of stage volume coming from his onstage cabinets, we power these by using a Crown amp, and a Hughes & Kettner red box.”

“I’m using two Apple MacBook Pros, master and backup, two MOTU UltraLite mk3 audio interfaces, a radial SW8 switcher, a MIDI Solutions MIDI thru box and two Muse Receptor VIPs, again master and backup,” says keyboard tech Paul Forgues. “The MOTUs are our audio interfaces, running off the FireWire bus. The Radial switcher is sent a 1kHz tone from the master UltraLite for ‘automatic’ switching in the event of power or other type of failure. The UltraLites also serve as the MIDI interface. All keyboards go through a Radial Pro D8 DI box. We use the Muse Receptor VIP for our piano sounds; in Live mode we can switch piano sounds instantaneously without waiting for the samples to load.

“The Akai MPK25 is being used as a triggering device for our track playback system,” says drum and bass tech Shane Timm. “Drum mics are the Shure Beta 52 on kick, Shure KSM137 on snare top, Shure Beta 57 on snare bottom, Shure KSM137 on hi-hat, Shure KSM-137 on toms, Shure Beta 98 on floor toms, Shure KSM181 on ride cymbal and Shure KSM181 on crash. Nate Harold uses an rcab audio 40 Bass Head and r2 cab for stage volume. For the FOH mix, he uses a combination of Boss and Electro Harmonix pedals to achieve his desired tone.”

The Meyer P.A system at the Greek comprised 28 LEO mains, 14 per side; 24 LF1100 subs, 12 per side; 24 MICA, 10 per side outfill when needed and two per side downfill; and eight UPJs on the lip, with six UPQs for utility fill.

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