Durham, NC (October 16, 2023)—Live sound engineer Ryan Pickett has mixed celebrated roots-rockers My Morning Jacket for decades, and while not set in his ways, he has developed a selection of go-to gear that gets the job done for creating a compelling mix when working with the band. Those items can be subject to change, however.
“My whole career has been to make the live shows sound bigger than the recordings, and a lot of that comes down to making good choices in microphones and gear that captures the energy of the performance,” he said. “That being said, keeping the wheels on is incredibly important. Dialing in new gear takes time, so I have only really replaced things when other things break — which is typically a good time to take advantage of something new and better.”
In preparation for the band’s most recent tour, Pickett made several changes to the band’s onstage miking, including adding a Lauten Audio Snare Mic to drummer Patrick Hallahan’s kit. The difference in sound quality was immediately apparent. “Patrick prefers a thicker snare sound with more ‘thud’ in it,” explained Pickett. “It’s a great sound — very ‘rock n’ roll’ — but if you put an average dynamic microphone on it, it can struggle to project or work in a mix in different venues.
My Morning Jacket Live
“What was immediately great about Snare Mic is it’s a large diaphragm condenser with a huge soundstage, so you can capture what he wants to hear for onstage monitoring while still providing me with the frequency detail around the ‘crack’ of the snare exactly how I needed it. It sounded amazing from the moment we set it up and made snare intelligibility that much easier to achieve.”
Hallahan is a heavy-hitting drummer, so the new mic gave Pickett more control over the situation. “The rejection factor in Snare Mic was a game changer for us,” said Pickett. “It really gives you a fighting chance as FOH to keep the integrity of the sound while molding it to what the day’s mix requires. The reduced spillover between the mics has allowed for tighter control of what’s going on and allows me to focus on delivering the energy and power in his playing. The fact that it’s so small was an added bonus too. His kit is tightly put together so having that tiny footprint means that he doesn’t hit it nearly as often which means it’ll last much longer.”
