Joan Baez is currently playing to packed houses across the country.At front-of-house is Woodstock, N.Y.-based engineer George Cowan, whoreveals that he’s packing an all-Sennheiser/Neumann lineup ofmicrophones to capture Baez and her four-piece band for the audienceand nightly archival recordings.
“I got [the Neumann KMS 105 wired vocal mic] because Joan has abeautiful voice,” Cowan said. “I’m a great fan of hi-fi, especially onthe vocals, and it really works well on her voice.”
Each show is being recorded for the archive using a 17-inch Apple G4PowerBook running Digital Performer, a pair of MOTU 828 digitalinterfaces and a Yamaha console. “I put Joan through a Focusrite micpre,” Cowan explained, “and coupled with the KMS 105, it sounds reallygreat.”
Comprising Baez’s band are Erik Della Penna (guitar and lapsteel), Duke McVinnie (guitars and vocals), Graham Maby (bass) andGeorge Javori (drums and percussion), who are all miked with SennheiserEvolution Series wired microphones.
“We’re using all the Evolution Series stuff on the drums,” hereported, “like the e602 on the kick, e604s on the toms and e903s onthe snare top and bottom.” Cowan is using e609 Silvers on theguitars and an e935 on the backing vocals with the Evolution 300wireless monitoring system for Joan and Graham Maby.
This is not Cowan’s first time on the road with Sennheiser andNeumann microphones. “I was front-of-house engineer for the Joe Jacksonworld tour all last year, and we used pretty much the same mics on thattour.” Cowan mixed 100 shows on the Joe Jackson Band’s world tourbefore signing up for the Baez tour in October of last year. Monitorsare being mixed by Jason Raboin.
For more information on the microphones, visit Sennheiser andNeumann at www.sennheiserusa.com and www.neumannusa.com, respectively. For more touringnews, visit mixonline.com/live_sound_tour_profiles/index.htm.
