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Shania Twain tours with audio solutions from Eighth Day Sound

Canadian country music singer Shania Twain’s “Queen of Me” tour comprised 78 shows across North America and Europe. FOH Engineer Rob “Cubby” Colby says his great experience mixing this tour has been down to the hard-working production crew: “Production Manager Denny Rich, Production Assistant Libby Dostart, Tour Coordinator/Tour Manager Joel Eriksson, Stage Manager Brandon Bogaert and Music Conductor Marco Gamboa helped to make it a joy to be a part of.”

Colby’s time with Eighth Day Sound, Twain’s long-term rental partner, has also been smooth sailing: “It has been an absolute pleasure to work with Tom Arko and his team at Eighth Day Sound”, he says. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know their different crews, project managers and office staff. Most recently on Shania’s tour, I requested a small footprint at FOH, and everything was addressed perfectly both at their US and UK shops.”

Colby’s console of choice has been DiGiCo since the desk’s inception. “Currently, I’m on an SD7 Quantum with two 32-Bit SD Racks”, he explains. “I use pretty much everything on the desk itself as my approach has always been of pure path. The only plug-ins I use are the Waves PSE & F6. I multitrack via 2 x MGB to BlackMagic Drives and use Logic Pro as the DAW. I have a Tascam SS-CDR200 for quick reference mixes and there are also 2 x Smart C2s in my rack, just in case.”

Colby says that Twain wanted a pop/rock approach: “Her voice is so strong and her band are great musicians, I enjoy the emphasis on the segue into different parts of the show”, he continues. “Shania has a very good knowledge of audio and musical sounds in general, and her vocal ability to harmonise and select the parts best suited for each singer in her band is interesting. She explains her vision for the live shows, and I translate that; she’s always the producer.”

He continues: “I familiarise myself with recorded versions of the songs, not just the biggest hits, and concerning Shania’s huge catalogue, there are many stories from her extensive career that offer a better perspective on what the song might be about. I take what I learn into her live production and create a sensitivity to the music mix.”

On the UK leg of the tour, 148 cabinets powered by over seventy D80 amplifiers were deployed for each show. The team opted for a D&B Audiotechnik rig comprising main and side hangs of KSL (8s and 12s), and flown and ground stacked SL Subs with Y10s on the inner placements and AL60s on the outer.

Colby worked closely with Systems Engineer Nils Knecht. “Cubby likes a round system with some low end and doesn’t want to overachieve with the D&B ArrayProcessing on a long throw; he wants to make sure there’s a natural touch”, states Knecht. “In the larger arenas where seats are sold all the way around, we had a 270-degree hang made up of V12s and V8s.”

“We used ArrayProcessing on all the hangs, which helped to make everything sound even throughout the venues, and the Y10s and AL60s made a little curved cluster to get the near fill we require”, he adds. “From Cubby’s SD7Q, he dropped me a couple of AES lines which I took into the Lakes at FOH to distribute the signal. All my processing happens in the amps, so my Lakes are a big matrix used to route the signal wherever I need it to go.”

Connie Fernstrom has been mixing Twain’s monitors for around eleven years and echoes the desire for consistency. “Shania wants things to be consistent, night after night, venue to venue. That’s what we strive to deliver”, he notes. Engineering on a DiGiCo SD5, he describes each song as unique: “Every song is unique in terms of how she likes to hear it live, but once we get that locked in, we do our best to deliver that same sound each night. For any monitor or FOH mixer, backline tech etc, you must earn the artist’s trust and then deliver on it repeatedly.”

Fernstrom generated eight mixes plus the crew shout-out lines. “Everyone used Shure PSM1000s with Shure Axient and ULXD for RF”, he explains. “Our DiGiCo drive racks and all my RF inputs/outputs were in one big rack. Eighth Day has been great with my packaging. Like Cubby, I asked them for a small footprint, which is why the SD5 was perfect.”

Fernstrom worked closely with right-hand man and Monitor Tech Nathan Fenchak, who adds: “The goal we have is to achieve the right mix without adding complexity to the monitor system. We had a couple of analogue splitters because Cubby and Connie didn’t share a cage but the whole show pretty much fit in one rack. The only unusual thing we were doing is that all of the backline RF was in our monitor rack, so the signal came into our rack, and we then returned the guitars out to the musicians, which ran through their Kempers and Helixes and back to us.” Fenchak’s RF file was built into a Shure Wireless Workbench.

Nick “Niko” Labas handled comms using Riedel’s Bolero wireless intercom system. Eighth Day Sound’s touring crew was completed by PA Techs Sam Hydorn and Jamie Tremelin.

(Photos: Eighth Day Sound)

www.8thdaysound.com

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