Gomez treated a San Francisco audience to three nights at the Fillmore Auditorium, where Mix spoke with engineer Graham Pattison about his front-of-house setup. “Gomez is a six-piece band with three lead vocalists, each with dramatically different voices,” Pattison says. “My job is a balancing act: You feel what’s working and who’s on fire and just go with it. The sets vary drastically and the songs jump from gentle acoustic ballads to full-on beats and loops in no time at all.
FOH engineer Graham Pattison
“We’re not carrying production in the U.S., but I have my little rack with a BSS 901 Mk1 multiband compressor that I put across the bass DI,” he continues. “It squashes the real low frequencies while leaving the upper frequencies untouched for a smooth, defined bass guitar. I love Alan Smart compressors, UREI 1178s and the totally overlooked Amek 9098 range: The EQ is crystal-clear and the compressor is amazing. I’ve recorded whole records though a couple of 9098 channel strips and compressors.
“I also travel with all of Line 6’s Pro range [Echo Pro, Filter Pro, Mod Pro] and one-half of my studio guitar pedal rig. Mixing to me is a performance in itself. Based on a kind of Eno/Frippertronic idea, I can route any signal through the guitar pedals: Tech 21 for vocal distortion/drum fattening feeding a Boss DD3 delay and a Digitech Whammy, which goes through a Wasabi Delay. After that, my Moogerfooger gear [Phaser, Murf, Delay and ring modulator] comes in. The combination of the rack gear with the pedals creates some psychedelic washes that I can pan and phase to my heart’s content. Mixing, to me, is a performance in itself. It’s all about setting a scene or providing a backdrop to the poetic message of the song.”
