MONITOR ENGINEER MARC DEPRATTO AT A DIGICO SD7 QUANTUM CONSOLE
(L-R) SYSTEMS ENGINEER/CREW CHIEF JONATHAN TRUDEAU & FOH ENGINEER CRAIG DOUBET
AT AN SSL L500 CONSOLE
MONITOR ENGINEER LOUIS-PHILIPPE MAZIADE AT A DIGICO SD7 QUANTUM CONSOLE
“It fits my style of working and it sounds great,” he says. “And,
with about 100 inputs, many busses and matrices at FOH, it’s one of
the few that could handle this show. I also really like that I can take
the giant show, load it into any SSL Live console, and do a small-
er-band show without having separate files; you just need to tell the
console which channels to load,” he adds.
He’s also a fan of the onboard effects, noting he’s only got a Uni-
versal Audio UAD-2 live rack for outboard effects and a few hardware
compressors with him at FOH; everything else is in the console.
Discussing his approach to his mix for this tour specifically,
Doubet says: “I just try to make it sound like the acoustic output on
the stage! Standing in front of that band is rich, dynamic, and amaz-
ing; [I try to] put everything together so the parts work, add a little
sizzle, and manage the dynamics.”
As Bublé’s initial concerns about improving the experience on
the B-stage demonstrate, the artist takes a relatively proactive ap-
proach to the live sound experience at his shows.
“Michael wants the mix big and impactful, and to have the nu-
ances he worked so hard to get on the recordings,” Doubet shares.
“Having the extra horns, the strings, and the three background vo-
calists has been so much fun. I love mixing this show. As usual on a
Michael Bublé tour, getting the textures right and creating a great
space for his vocal is the key.”
Owing to the fact that a typical stop has nearly 40 musicians onstage
and the channel count that comes with it, monitor duties are split
between Solotech’s Marc Depratto and Louis-Philippe Maziade. The
32 PROFESSIONAL SOUND
former has been a staple of Michael Bublé tours since 2010, moving
into the role of monitor engineer partway through the To Be Loved
Tour a few years back, while Maziade’s time with Bublé goes back to
2008 as audio crew chief and systems engineer.
Depratto handles the mix for Bublé and the core five-piece
band while Maziade mixes the horn section, backup vocalists, and
the local orchestra for each date. “Mixing with a second person is
always a challenge, so we’re really lucky that we have a very similar
way of approaching our workflow,” offers Depratto.
Maziade notes they’ve had ample opportunity to develop that
camaraderie. “We’ve been working together for more than 12 years,” he
says, recalling their first jaunt with Nana Mouskouri across Canada.
On a typical tour stop, Depratto handles the stage miking with
a relatively sizeable assortment of DPA, Sennheiser, Neumann, and
Shure offerings.
Bublé is currently using a Sennheiser 6000 with a Neumann KK205
capsule, breaking from his typical wired connection to have more free-
dom to navigate the thrust and secondary stage.
The background vocalists are on Shure Axient handhelds with DPA
4018S capsules while the team relies entirely on DPA for the orchestra,
with d:vote 4099 instrument mics on the horns and d:screet 4060 mini
omnidirectionals on the strings.
Maziade admits it can be a challenge dealing with slapback with
such a large complement of very sensitive instrument mics on the or-
chestra – particularly when the dynamics peak in some of the punchier
parts of the show.
“It’s like a cat-and-mouse chase every time, because if you push
them a bit too hard, you’re getting more leakage coming in, so it’s about
finding the problem frequencies and bringing them down to make the
mix better without all the sound coming back from the room,” he says.
Both engineers are mixing on their own Digico SD7 Quantum
console. For Depratto, it comes down to flexibility. “I can create my own
workflow – it’s like an open grid that I can tailor to whatever I’m doing
and route any fader anywhere I want at any time,” he says. “You’re not
confined to a certain workflow or work environment.”
As far as he’s concerned, the Digico preamps are the best you’ll find
on a digital console. “Not to put down other desks, but to my ears, it’s
the warmest and most pleasing preamp on the market right now,” he
asserts. He also appreciates the onboard effects, as the only outboard
pieces he needs are two Lexicon PCM92s for reverb on the main vocal.
For Maziade’s work with the orchestra in particular, the Quantum
edition’s nodal processing is a big help in terms of being able to add
strip processing on aux outputs. “That lets you tweak the musicians’
individual mixes based on their requests without affecting the main
source,” he says. That’s been particularly effective with the horn players,