d&b audiotechnik J-Series audio system
Daniel Caesar during soundcheck
McLellan has been behind the
FOH board for Daniel Caesar since
day one. Back in 2016, he got a call
from Riley Bell, a recording studio
acquaintance who co-produced
and engineered Freudian (and
subsequently won a Juno Award),
asking if he’d like to mix the artist’s
first-ever show – a sold-out night at
Toronto’s Mod Club. Needless to say,
McLellan was intrigued.
“That’s obviously no small feat,”
he says, considering the venue’s
600-plus capacity. “The experience
from day one has been nothing but
amazing, and almost four years later,
we still can’t get rid of each other.”
Rowland came into the fold
the following year, and the two have
locked into a synergistic workflow in
the time since. For the two Budweis-
er Stage shows, that was facilitated
by the Avid S6L-32Ds anchoring
their respective workstations.
“I’ve been switching between
consoles for the last two years
now,” Rowland reveals. “During our
rehearsals for the CASE STUDY 01
album cycle, I was actually on [a
Digico] SD7 and simultaneously
spun up on the Avid. Our first run of
shows was through Asia, and since
I now tour manage for Daniel and
am very conscious of our budget, I
wanted Cam and I to have files we
were happy with that we could take
on the road straight away, without
taking on any additional costs. After
10 days of programming on the
Digico, I started playing back into
the Avid and one night, in prepara-
tion for the next day, I switched all
outputting to the Avid. I didn’t tell
the band, and the next morning
after a few songs, they commented
on the clarity, space, and the way
the mix sat together, and they loved
it. The biggest thing I noticed was
the difference in headroom, but
there indeed was a separation that
seemed much easier to achieve in
the Avid.”
McLellan adds: “The way Avid
lays out their consoles has always
been great for me intuitively, hav-
ing used Pro Tools in the studio
for roughly 15 years. The workflow
just makes sense. I’ve always liked
walking up to a Profile or SC48 on
the road for that reason – especially
if I’m dialing in something from
scratch – and the S6L is a nice, natu-
ral upgrade from that.”
McLellan isn’t carrying any
outboard gear or external plug-ins
on this run, instead opting for the
S6L’s stock tools. That was also the
case for the Budweiser Stage shows.
“Honestly, not much has changed
over the years in terms of how I ap-
proach each show,” he says. “Wheth-
er it’s Coachella or the Horseshoe
Tavern, the principles of my mix stay
the same.”
On that note, he says that his
approach to mixing Daniel Caesar
is, interestingly, informed by his
formative experience in the rock
and metal scenes. “The drums are
the foundation of my mix and what
I get the most comments on when
people hear him live,” he says. “For
an R&B artist, you might expect to
hear duller and more tame-sound-
ing drums to cater to the more laid-
back energy you’d anticipate from
this sort of music, when in reality, if
you listened to my drum mix soloed
versus any of the metal guys I used
to mix, you wouldn’t find too much
of a difference sonically – smooth
overheads and punchy shells being
the base of the mix.”
The rest of the instruments are
mostly driven by in-the-box sourc-
es, so for any given show, he’ll fine-
tune their sonic character and carve
out any problematic frequencies
that a given venue “doesn’t particu-
larly like that day.”
Of course, central to it all are
Caesar’s unmistakably smooth
and serene vocals, which, in true
modern pop fashion, McLellan sits
prominently on top of everything.
“He’s got an insane amount of low-
mid information in his voice, so he’s
high-passed unusually high for the
most part, changing from room to
room,” McLellan explains. “Toss in
a few reverbs and a couple of FX
throws and that’s the meat and
potatoes of it all.”
While they’ve been relying on
house systems to relay that mix for
the vast majority of the CASE STUDY
01 dates, for Budweiser Stage,
Weigold sourced a substantial d&b
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