42 l June 2014
www.psneurope.com
livereport EUROPE Ghost story
FOH supremo Oliver Voges tells Richard Morgan how he brings the challenging rock/hip-hop sound of German sensation Casper alive on the biggest stages
WHILE HE might not be a known entity among English-speaking audiences, Benjamin ‘Casper’ Griffey is big business in mainland Europe. Casper’s distinctive brand of self-proclaimed ‘emo rap’ – delivered in German, even though the man himself is half-American and spent a good chunk of his childhood in the States – regularly tops the charts in countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and his live shows generally take place in sold-out arenas. And yes – he is named after everyone’s favourite friendly ghost. However, standard electronic hip-hop fare this is not. A five- piece live rock band backs up Casper’s aggressively delivered vocals, making his shows a far cry from the typical rap concert scenario of one or more vocalists on stage performing to a backing track.
For the last couple of years, the man tasked with bringing Casper and co’s live sound to life is Oliver Voges. A vastly experienced freelance engineer, Voges has toured the world with bands as diverse as Faith No More and DragonForce, and has mixed live music at the Eurovision Song Contest, the MTV Europe Music Awards, and major festivals like Rock am Ring, Monsters of Rock and the Montreux Jazz Festival. “I do this job because I love it,” Voges enthuses, as we open our chat by going over his varied career. “I love producing music, making music, hearing music … so this job is perfect for me!” Voges started out in the business like many engineers do – playing guitar in an adolescent band of buddies. His lot took it on slightly further than most, though, touring solidly for a decade and almost signing deals with Epic and Sony. Along the way, Voges took a natural interest in the production side of things, simultaneously taking charge of
recording his band’s demos and completing a degree in audio engineering. When the band and his studies finished, Voges took the logical step of moving into engineering.
“For about eight years, I was just pulling cables and setting up mics and speakers and stuff,” he says. After that lengthy period of production purgatory, higher profile gigs followed, and these days, Voges is usually doing shows in amphitheatres – like the 15,800-capacity Cologne Arena on the current tour – with Casper and band. Getting the group sounding their best in such high-pressure situations means their engineer needs equipment he can trust, like his trusty Yamaha CL5 desk. “At live shows, I don’t want to be sitting there using anything that I’m less than 120 per cent convinced about,” Voges says. “I’m a bit of a Yamaha guy, because I like their approach to console layout, and the CL5 allows me to have a very small FOH footprint. I’m pretty familiar with Yamaha PM5Ds and PM1800s too, which I’ve used for years. I started using them back with [veteran German hip-hop outfit] Fettes Brot.”
Casper the friendly rapper at the 2013 Berlin Festival
Compression on Casper’s vocals is also crucial. “We’ve tried every compression plug-in that you can think of for bands!” Voges says. “I love Empirical Labs Distressors, and I’ve found that for Casper it’s the best compression you can have.”
Making Waves: Oliver Voges’s FOH kit
“Some people think that’s so much compression to have on a voice … but if it sounds good, I use it!”
Oliver Voges
Outboard and plug-ins are also key, with Waves Soundgrid being an essential part of Voges’s setup since before his Casper days. “I added Soundgrid to my setup six years ago,” he says, “because I’m also a studio engineer – it’s where I started! – and I was trying to bring studio ideas to life in a live situation. You know, New York compression for drums, and a lot of different processing chains like you have in the studio that you could not
naturally do live. Now you can do it with Soundgrid.” The Waves kit really helps in letting Casper’s live drummer compete with loops onstage. “Onstage, I have a full, natural rock band, but at the same time there’s this massive hip-hop influence, and sometimes I have to compress and produce drums hard so they can keep up with loops,” Voges says. “Here, the Waves plug-ins help me a lot. I like to use the Neve V-EQ4 on kicks, and I use an SSL G equaliser and Renaissance compression on the snares. For these channels I also use the Renaissance Axx compressor in order to get these pumping sounds I’m looking for.” Sometimes, Voges says, the audience can’t even tell the
difference. “They often won’t be able to hear if the sound they are experiencing is coming from a loop or acoustic drums – or if they’re matched together and played simultaneously,” he says. “My job is to fill that gap, so that they never hear the gap! To make the rock band sound like a sample player, I guess.”
For bass, Voges takes two signals from the stage. “First, I take the direct instrument from the stage and then use my own amp, followed by Waves Renaissance Bass with the API 2500 compressor on the insert,” he says. “Then, I have a second channel coming with all the stompboxes the bassist uses, so the FX don’t interfere with the original sound.”
It’s all to do with the shoutiness, he thinks. “At every show, I always have my finger on Casper’s shouts. He’s always doing
something, and I have to follow. For verses, I’ll do a 1-3 dB gain reduction. For any little shouts in the chorus, it can even be 12-14 dB!” He laughs. “Some people think that’s so much compression to have on a voice, but you know what? It sounds good! If it sounds good, I use it.”
And the keys to Voges’s success? Well, besides the obvious one – talent – there’s many reasons, but two others stand out. Firstly, his empathy with the artist: “I know exactly how a musician feels onstage, because I’ve done it for 20 years!” Secondly, knowing who to trust: himself. “I’m an old-school guy,” he says, “so I always do my FOH myself. I never have any babysitters in there.”
Amen to that.
www.casperxo.com www.empiricallabs.com www.sound-and-concept.de www.waves.com
www.yamahaproaudio.com
Photo: Henry Laurisch
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