https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fzrXztOB7o
I believe it was the noted Canadian socio-economic theorists Loverboy who once said, “Everybody’s workin’ for the weekend.” Thirty years later, someone else is almost doing that—monitor engineer Andy Ebert, currently on a world tour with a more recent Canadian act: The Weeknd (note the missing third “e”). Ebert dropped us a line to fill us in on the artist’s current world tour.
“The Weeknd is a Toronto-based R&B artist who lets people download his music from his website for free. For his first tour of the USA, Clair Global provided all the audio gear for our tour. It was extremely successful and we will continue touring in Europe in June and then later in the summer in the US again.
“Karen Weigold, the FOH engineer, uses an Avid Venue SC48 with SPL Transient Designer, Smack, Revibe and Tape Saturation plug-ins. The PA is always in house.
Andy Ebert (left) and Karen Weigold are the monitor and FOH engineers, respectively, for Canadian R&B artist The Weeknd.
“Over at monitors, I use an Avid Venue Profile with TC Electronic Reverbs, SPL Transient Designer, Crane Song Phoenix, Smack, and Fairchild 660 and BF 76 plug-ins. The IEMs are Sennheiser G2 with JH Audio JH16 monitors for The Weeknd and generic IEMs for the band. Conventional monitoring consists of a pair of Clair SRM wedges for the singer and a Clair ML18 sub for the drummer. We use a selected set of Heil Sound microphones for all the instruments and vocals with an RC 35 capsule for the main vocal, fitted on to a Shure UHF-R wireless handheld.
“Every show sold out in just a few hours after it went on sale. At Coachella, we played an early evening slot in front of about 30,000 fans. They are going crazy every night, singing along every word to every song. I tried to use audience mics at the first shows, but the crowds are so incredibly loud, that I really didn’t need them!”
