34 l June 2013
www.psneurope.com
livereport UNITED KINGDOM Get Mrs Carter!
The unmistakeable vocal talent that is Beyoncé puts on an O2 Arena show that will undoubtedly live long in the memory of all those who were lucky enough to witness it, writes Paul Watson
THE THING about Beyoncé Knowles is she’s just so bloody good. Whether you’re an avid fan or just someone who appreciates a strong vocal performance, there’s really no debating it. The 17-time Grammy Award-winner has been shown to be ‘Auto-Tune proof’ in the studio; while on stage, she’s absolute dynamite. What the public probably
aren’t so aware of, however, is her hands-on approach towards her live shows: she reviews her show tapes every night, and
she’s very involved when it comes to live sound. “Beyoncé is definitely not shy
about her opinions on things, and it’s good to hear those specifics, although it’s not always easy making them happen,” smiles FOH engineer for The Mrs Carter World Tour, Stephen Curtin. “She always wants a nice clean vocal, but she gets far more particular than that: she likes to be very well heard over the music out front, which can be challenging for me as I have to build in
some headroom, first to accommodate the music and then her vocal, and that’s before you start hitting any kind of system conversion.” To cope with Beyoncé’s
extraordinarily wide dynamic range, her vocal chain is understandably longer than most: signal from her Sennheiser SKM 5200-II handheld (with MD 5235 dynamic capsule) hits the preamp on the DiGiCo SD7 at FOH, gets squeezed a little by an Avalon 737 compressor on the insert, then is passed to a group
Kit from Shure, Sennheiser and d&b helps Beyoncé put on a spectacular show
where it receives a light shaping from a Waves compressor plug-in, before finally settling at the master fader.
“The vocal’s going through a
few different stages, but it’s not limiting her dynamic range; it’s just harder live than in the studio
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