253. FOH Engineer Paul Bevan On His Eclectic (And Quite Interesting) Career Journey

Veteran front of house engineer Paul Bevan joins the show in Episode 253 and discusses his eclectic career that includes mixing a wide range of gigs, from regal (Boston Pops Fourth of July) to raucous (Mott the Hoople), and just about everything in between. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

While his music mixing resume is extensive — including The Spin Doctors, Hall & Oates, The Chieftains, and more — and his corporate and broadcast resumes are equally vast, Paul is perhaps best known for helping create the genre of showing films with the score performed live by a symphony orchestra, a specialty that’s led to mixing countless performances such as the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars movies, Amadeus, and doing both the live and broadcast mixes for the Emmy Award winning Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton — Live From Lincoln Center

Episode Links:
Paul Bevan Website
Batman Suite (excerpt from Danny Elfman’s Music from the Films of Tim Burton — Live From Lincoln Center)
Episode 253 Transcript

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Transcript

Signal To Noise, Episode 253: FOH Engineer Paul Bevan On His Eclectic (And Quite Interesting) Career Journey

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience.

RCF, who has just unveiled their new TT+ Audio brand, including the high performance GTX series line arrays and the GTS29 subwoofer. Be sure to check it out at rcf-usa.com. That's rcf-usa.com.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green


Andy Leviss: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and over there is the SM to my 58, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean? 

Sean Walker: up, buddy? What's up, y'all? How you guys doing? 

Andy Leviss: Hey, you 

Sean Walker: another whole week of, you know, bad jokes and audio? 

Andy Leviss: I mean, you know, I think that's gonna be my new thing, I gotta come up with a new, the X to my Y for every, we'll see if folks get, I know there's completists out there listening who are gonna come out, start making a list, and like, somebody will be able to tell us exactly which episode I said what, so, so that might be the new fun, uh, the new fun game. 

Sean Walker: Oh no. 

Andy Leviss: Um 

Sean Walker: better mind my P's and Q's more. Nah, we know that'll never happen. Just kidding. Dude, this week I got, I got a bunch of like, meetings and board of directors meetings and boring shit to be doing. And then I saw the fucking Rippin Rock show that's happening in Vegas and I'm like, I wanna go! 

And I looked at my calendar and I was like, too many meetings. I cannot skip, but I want to go see this rock show. Oh, being a tech is way more fun than being a business owner, bro. Way more fun when you're just like, you know what? I'm not going to schedule anything this week because I want to go see a show. 

Andy Leviss: Yep, that's, I got, I got some travel for a wedding coming up, some travel for vacations, and it's like, you gotta do the math, but yeah, it's sometimes nice to be able to just, yep, F off for a week and we're gonna not. 

Sean Walker: Totally. It's like my whole childhood of music is playing in one festival in Vegas right now. And I'm like, ah, I would love to go see that. 

Andy Leviss: Well, speaking of whole childhoods full of music, um, why don't we introduce this week's guest who has a wide spanning resume of everything from like, pop, rock, uh, there's a couple bands on there who you could arguably say invented loud, as we were joking when we were texting last night. Um, and also a lot of, like, the live film and movie stuff, uh, Paul Bevan. 

How you doing, Paul? 

Paul Bevan: Hey, hey everyone. How are you? 

Andy Leviss: So, uh, yeah, Paul, I mean, why don't you, why don't you start us off, give us, you want to give us the quick capsule, uh, highlights reel of, uh, of 

Paul Bevan: Well, well it is kind of true that, you know, the majority of people probably just do rock theatre or just do corporate. But I do, apart from theatre, I do almost everything kind of equally. I just love the variety, you know, short attention span, uh, for sure. And, uh, it's great being able to bring the skills from one thing into the other. 

So the attention to detail in corporate, uh, and making it look great for the audience is something that rock and roll can, can, um, could definitely benefit from. So, you know, there are definitely skills you learn in one area that you can bring into another area and it just makes you better all around, I think. 

Andy Leviss: Uh, yeah, and so, I mean, do you want to give us just, like, rather than me listing off some of the highlights, like, why don't you tell us some of your favorites of, of, uh, of, like, what, what some of those keys you've done are? 

Paul Bevan: Um, well, so the, the, the, the, the condensed version is I went to university to be a chemical engineer, but I found out that in Britain that, you know, at the time in Britain, students ran all the entertainment and I found out that if you sat on the door for an hour and sold tickets for the concerts, you could get in free to all the concerts. 

So I was a huge music fan. Um, that's what started me off. Then I learned to DJ and do lights and sound. Uh, book bands, and you have to appreciate the time, at that time, the bands playing colleges were the Pretenders, U2, Dire Straits, you know, all the bands that went on to be huge, it was kind of like the beginning of the, uh, just that post punk new wave. 

So we got Def Leppard. for 600 pounds, U2 for 350 pounds, UB40 opening for the Pretenders before they even had a record deal. It was just a great time. So then I went off, worked for a while, but someone offered me a job in a performing arts center. Um, as their production manager and sound engineer. And just went from there, did that, moved to London, was the house engineer at the Marquee Club. 

Uh, one day a band came in, and when they left, I left with them, went on tour. And, uh, did the usual touring, working for a local sound company. was touring in the U. S., met an American violinist, got married, and then moved to New York. And then since then, it's been, you know, introduced to the world of corporate and special events. 

Which being based in New York, there's no shortage of corporate and special events stuff you can do in between tours or in between any of the other projects. There's just so much work here. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and it's, and it's such a small world, too, that while, like, Paul and I were texting the last couple weeks and emailing to try and make this episode happen, I got a last minute call to fill in as a local handout to load in on Monday, and I walk in and there's the production engineer, Paul Bevin. Oh, hey, I owe you an email. 

And here we are. Um, 

Sean Walker: I owe you an email. I'm sorry. So let's sort this out right now. Can you do this on, uh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? 

Paul Bevan: Uh, oh yeah, yeah, can you do this in two days? 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, pretty much. It was like, cool, I'll see you Friday. Uh, um, and yeah, I mean, looking like Looking at Paul's website right now, if like we've kind of glossed over the, the wild mix of artists that Paul has. I'm literally looking at Mata Hoople, Shirley Bassie, Manhattan Transfer, and the Boston Pops overlaid over a photo of Lady Gaga at a benefit like 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. One, one, one from column A, one from column B, one from column C. 

Andy Leviss: So, and I, and again there like, there's lots of rock, lots of pop there, but one of the things that I know you've always been in my in. My focus for that you kind of sort of developed a specialty and I think it's it's fair to say is like the symphonic film events like including some Some award winning work for the music of Danny Elfman at one point. 

I think some Lord of the Rings I think there's some others in there too that I'm probably 

Paul Bevan: Oh, a bunch. Yeah. This is such a growing, um, concept now of watching a film with all the music being performed live. So my background was that I was doing a show up at Tanglewood, met Steve Colby, who is the front of house engineer for the Boston Pops, who was looking for someone to do front of house whenever they did a TV show, because Steve would jump on to the TV mix. 

So I mixed the Boston Pops for 10 years, and at one point, Um, the, I guess the Lord of the Rings were going out and doing an evening of music from all three films and someone said to the producers, Why don't you show a film and then have the music synced up with it? No one had really done it in those, this is 16 years ago. 

No one had really done it those days. There was a, I think there might have been a Wizard of Oz, and maybe a West Side Story that had attempted it, but in those days they had no way of, uh, extracting the music from the soundtrack because, you know, there were no stems, they were all just mixed together. And we were really fortunate in that we, first of all, we invented the way of syncing everything together. 

The music up to the thing and keeping the conductor, having the conductor keep everything in sync. Uh, but we also had access to stems, so we could get the dialogue and the sound effects and then any incidental background music that couldn't be performed live, which is very little. It's like a couple of songs in the Lord of the Rings films. 

So, uh, we had access to those without the music, so we had a clean Plate to, uh, to be able to, to just put the music over. Um, and since then it's become such a favorite with orchestras, especially in the U S not so much around the rest of the world, but the, you know, occasionally we go and do them in Australia and the UK, but it's, uh, every orchestra in the U S has discovered that this is a great. 

uh, format to bring in new audiences. Often, you know, I'll go and do things and you'll see, I'd say probably at least 75 percent of the audience have never seen an orchestra before, but they'll go and watch Lord of the Rings, or they'll go and watch Harry Potter, or they'll go and watch Back to the Future, um, And that brings them in in the door and maybe they'll come back and and see some of the classical program. 

So it's great for audiences. 

Sean Walker: All right. When's the Back to the Future showing? I'm in. 

Paul Bevan: It's, 

Sean Walker: Long gone. 

Paul Bevan: playing somewhere. Harry Potter is definitely playing somewhere, you know, with nine movies. With Lord of the Rings we have three movies, so we've managed to keep it going for 16 years and we get booked all the time. But Harry Potter, they have nine movies and fanatical fans, so those are always playing somewhere. 

So since then, so as well as that, I do Amadeus, Gladiator, Titanic, Nightmare Before Christmas, I do a great Beatles orchestral program where we bring the band and play with the local orchestra. Uh, clip show with a Japanese film composer called Joe Hisaishi, who's done music for all these, um, anime films, which has sold out four nights of Radio City. 

Um, it's, it's such a popular format, and, um, I don't think it's, I'm not sure if it's a secret, but I'll just tell you, I think we might be starting Avatar. In, uh, you know, the Avatar, the blue, the blue Avatars. We just did Avatar Airbender, which is going on tour in the fall. And I think in the fall, we're also going to do the, you know, the Avatar film. 

Um, 

Sean Walker: what a fun project that is. That's cool. 

Paul Bevan: And the challenge, I mean, it's a great format because the music, if you listen, if you go watch the films like Lord of the Rings, the music's pretty quiet. And, um, played live, it's much louder. Much more impact. It has kind of this emotional impact that the music in the film sort of has, but it's, it's, uh, definitely much, much more prevalent in the, uh, in the concerts that we do. 

Andy Leviss: so, like, when you're doing that, like, is it a t like, if you were doing, like, just a symphonic piece, like, outside of that, versus Doing like one of these film events, like, is it a similar stylistic and similar miking choices, or like, are, because of that different balance with the other aspects of the film, is that changing at all? 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. Well, so I, for, for micing technique, I use what I call semi close. I don't like the idea of putting a microphone on every single instrument. uh, for a couple of reasons. It can be too present, uh, and you still want it to sound orchestral, but it's still, but it's got to be somewhat present. It's got to be clear and detailed. 

Um, so I tend to put microphones like one on two violins. Um, if there are two flutes, I'll put one over the two flutes. If there are three oboes, I'll put two microphones on the three oboes, but I'll wire it often into one channel because I want to capture what the players are doing and not alter their dynamics. 

If you have a microphone on every instrument, there could be a tendency that in one piece you see one of them is very loud, the other's kind of quiet, so you adjust the gains. Next piece, balance has changed completely. It's just because they were playing with a dynamic, uh, for that particular piece. So if you just put the microphone sort of close. 

but not one on every instrument. You capture the section and then you just mix the sections together. It also keeps the, the, uh, microphone count down as well. But what is possibly even worse is when I see people who say, Oh, I mix orchestras. The first thing I do is put two microphones over the conductor's head. 

Well, for me, it's the worst thing you can do because all you're going to do there is capture what's already loud. So the brass and the percussion, obviously are the loudest things on the stage so you want to have some closer mics in on the strings and woodwinds just to bring bring those up you know somewhere around the same level as the brass and and percussion 

Sean Walker: totally what are some of your mic preferences to use in those situations? 

Paul Bevan: all condensers. 

You know, I love it when I hear people say, Oh, you can't use condensers on stage because they feed back. So when I do say a Danny Elfman, as I said, 90, 90 odd condenser mics. So Neumann KM184s, AKG, so 414s, either, Uh, large, uh, uh, large diaphragm condensers for brass, uh, KSM 137s, you know, and I'm not too bothered by, by what they are. 

I mean, it's nice to get Neumanns, whatever possible, Schepps, much more common in Europe than they are in the US, but it's gotta be a good quality. Um, 

Sean Walker: are those KSM 137s like a sleeper of an awesome little microphone for the money? 

Paul Bevan: fantastic, you know, and I have people say, Oh, you know, you can just use an 81. 

Sean Walker: no, no, no, no, 

Andy Leviss: Night and day, night and day. 

Paul Bevan: And that's one of my few, like, won't go there. That's one of my few, that's, that's the line in the sand. 

Sean Walker: Correct. 

Paul Bevan: um, 

Sean Walker: I 

Paul Bevan: there's some great pencil condensers. Yeah. Good. 

Sean Walker: know I was gonna say I remember the first time I heard that 137. I was like, What is that? For sure. Really? That thing's awesome. Because because I'm a microphone snob from the studio, like, so You know, a 180 4, 4 0 180 4, 4 50 ones, those kind of things, right? 

DPA 40 elevens for drum overheads is one of my faves, and I heard that 1 37. I went, get the fuck outta here. That 

Paul Bevan: No, for the price. 

Sean Walker: like four or 500 bucks or whatever. Fucking awesome. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, it's, it's been wild watching that shift, like, as for, and like, listeners will know, like, I snark about like a 57 and 58 sometimes, like, they are what they are, they're great at what they are, but like, that, that era of like 57, 58, 81s, like, what Shure's done recently is like, A total, total, like, earth shift in, in what their mics sound like, what their mics are useful for, it's, it's astounding. 

Sean Walker: Totally dude. And their new ribbon they made, I forget the model number. That thing is fucking awesome. 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. So my new revelation is the KSM 8. I do a lot of work with Danny Elfman, who, he's an amazing performer, I mean everyone knows him as a great composer. But, you know, I don't know if people are familiar with him as a performer with Don't Go Bongo. But now, uh, when we do the two orchestral projects that we do, one is a show of clips from 14 different Tim Burton films. 

And, um, and we, Danny comes out at the end and sings four songs from Nightmare Before Christmas. And then we also do the entire film of Nightmare Before Christmas with Danny singing the main part, which he did in the film. And then we have five actors who voice all the other characters live. And then. Up until recently, there was one song with Catherine O'Hara and Paul Reubens, and obviously we've lost Paul, but so the last couple of shows have been either Weird Al, or, uh, Fred Armisen. 

Um, but there's a lot of words and finding, I've tried so many different mics on, uh, on Danny's voice just to get the clarity on a big PA and the KSM 8 has just been a revelation. It's a 

Sean Walker: dude, that's 

Paul Bevan: amazing sounding mic. 

Sean Walker: I've not used it. I skipped right over that and went to a nine or to de factos, but I will go revisit that. That's 

Paul Bevan: You should. Yeah, I think it's funnily enough, I think the nine came out first, and the eight might be more recently, but it's a dual diaphragm, almost no proximity effect. So for anything where you want super clarity, you know, you get the mic in close. It's all low end, you lose all the clarity, um, they pull it off and then you lose all the, uh, the level and you lose all the warmth. 

The KSM 8 is not like that at all. You get such a consistent sound if someone's kind of handheld with it. 

Sean Walker: Well, there goes five grand I wasn't expecting to spend today. Thanks a lot, 

Paul Bevan: Ah! 

Andy Leviss: I mean, 5Rand'll buy a pile of those, but 

Paul Bevan: it. It's great. 

Andy Leviss: See, I'm glad to share that title with folks, usually I'm the most expensive friend around here. But yeah, I can endorse this, uh, when I've been mixing down at the Perlman, there's, uh, the initial package they got of wireless was all KSMA 8 heads, they had like 150 8 head, and I was like, this is great, and everybody else was like, you're crazy, I'm like, no, listen to it, it's great, 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: um 

Paul Bevan: I still, you know, cause I'm not super techie. So I don't know how the dual diaphragm thing works, but, but it really is fantastic. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, we should get, you know, we were talking with a couple of the folks from Shure about getting a couple of them on. It would be interesting to just like do a deep nerd out on that one day. Um, yeah, so actually like the other tech question I had, which you mentioned in passing, and I know this is a thing that comes up in a lot of orchestral things that we typically frown on in other situations, is whying mics together. 

I was like, could you talk a little bit about that? 

Paul Bevan: Oh, I see this all the time in discussions. Oh, you can't wind mics together. It's like on a, an orchestral show. Maybe a third of the inputs I have are wide, uh, a wide mics. Um, I like it because I like, I like keeping the fader countdown because when you have a really busy show, you don't want to go through 96 individual microphones, and if you can get that countdown into in the seventies, it gives you more chance. 

One of the things you have to also understand is. You don't get a soundcheck. Um, it's, for a couple of reasons why this is, uh, good and bad. You don't get a soundcheck. It's too expensive to have the orchestra sitting there for 30 minutes while you say, okay, can I just hear the French horns? Can I just hear the things? 

So they start playing, you start mixing. Um, and it was such a shock when I first started mixing the Boston Pops. I had no idea that would be the case. It's like, Here we go, and you just dial it in as they play, 

Sean Walker: You're like, thank God I had my coffee and Wheaties this morning, dude, holy moly. 

Paul Bevan: Yeah, can you imagine you're telling bands, oh no, you can't, you know, engineers, you can't have a sound check They're just gonna play and you're gonna dial it 

Sean Walker: go. 

Paul Bevan: Yeah But the, but the other thing you have to remember with orchestras is you're not just mixing instruments, you're mixing spell Because sometimes, you know, they'll start playing, you put the string mics up, and you'll say, Ooh, the horns sound great! 

Uh, 

Sean Walker: the string 

Paul Bevan: everything, the 

Sean Walker: Yeah, totally. 

Paul Bevan: the percussion in the woodwind mics. Um, because often, you know, the way the orchestra is laid out, percussion and, uh, brass could be blowing directly into any of these quieter instrument mics that need a lot more gain. So you, one of the things you, you, you kind of tend to approach it with is that I always start with the strings, you get a good string sound and you'll hear the bleed from the brass and from the percussion in them. 

And then at the end, you also use the closer mics on those instruments. But maybe, uh, roll off some of the highs a little bit. So you take the warmth from the close in mics on the trumpets and trombones, uh, because you've already got some of the bleed, which is a little high end y into the, uh, into the other mics. 

So if you did a, if you did a conventional sound check where you say, okay, let me just hear the second violins. Let me just hear the flutes. When they started playing together. It would be meaningless because now you're getting all the bleed from these other instruments into those mics. So in a way, although it's a little frightening when you first do it, it actually works out because you're not getting a false impression of what those individual mics sound like. 

You're hearing them in context. 

Sean Walker: And when you say roll off some of the top end of the horn mics, are you talking like a little high shelf? Are you talking about low pass down to some frequency that makes it 

Paul Bevan: Whatever sound, as with everything, whatever sounds right. It's like, you know, you hear what's bleeding into the string mics, And you just take, you know, and it's not much, it might be two DB. You just take out some of that, you know, it might be like between three and 5k. Um, you tend not to get the, the, the, the real shimmer, the 10, the eight, eight, nine, 10 K it's more, you know, some, some of the, uh, high mids, 

Sean Walker: right where, right where they're bright, harsh, and present? 

Paul Bevan: yeah. 

Um, Um, so that's good. So, and as I was saying, it's funny when people say, just use two mics overhead, over the conductor's head, because I think they see studio recordings, uh, or they see videos of studio recordings, and they see that, and they think that's how the orchestra is captured. What they don't see is that in most film scoring sessions, there could be 40 spot mics in the orchestra. 

But you don't see them, because all you see is these two microphones over the conductor's head. And that's doing, I don't know, 20 percent of the recording. Uh, people are still using these spot mics to get the, uh, the closer in detail. And I think it's because, uh, in film scores, Um, the way the music is written, quieter instruments are as loud in the recording as loud instruments. 

You know, when you hear an orchestra things, some things are naturally quieter and, and softer, but people, you know, people will write very intricate string lines and, uh, woodwind lines, and you have to make the violins and the oboes as loud as the tuber just because that's the way the music is arranged without it sounding unnatural. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's, that's a key thing that It's so easy to lose focus of and I, you know, it's funny the other week I was mixing a choral orchestral piece and texting with a friend and frequent guest co host of the podcast, Aram Piligian. I was texting with Aram the other day and we were saying about how that's like, the other thing people don't seem to understand is that even within like the, there's spot mics that people don't realize are there. 

The difference between orchestral and choral recording versus reinforcement, and when there's an orchestra alone or when there's an orchestra and a choir with them, it all changes so dramatically and you have to think about it differently, and like you can't come into it like, well this is operatic so we're doing it like an opera, and it's like that doesn't always work. 

Paul Bevan: yeah. One of the big challenges, uh, the way most of these film orchestra, um, the musicians on stage are laid out is usually the choir is along the back and right in front of them is the percussion section, which, uh, as soon as you open the choir mics, It's like the percussion is 10 times louder. So one of the things you have to do is you have to build the choir mic sound into the percussion, um, micing. 

So I usually, during the whole concert, we'll leave the choir mics cracked at about minus 20, minus 15, and use those as part of my percussion, uh, micing. Because when you go from minus 15 to zero, when the choir sings, It's not as drastic as if you went from zero or off to, um, to, to zero DB. 

Sean Walker: Well, that's a good, that's a good point. 

Paul Bevan: So there's a tip for nothing. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and, well, on that subject, like, for the choir mics, like, how, how close into the choir are you going, like, how many mics would you be doing across a 

Paul Bevan: Well, I, well, one of the things that I always try to do is I try to get, make sure that the choir is, um, my, is arranged. As vertical as possible as opposed to straight out left and right because if you're thinking of the way the microphone picks up, um, if you've got four rows, you can pick up with one microphone four rows. 

If you only have two rows, you know, the top and the bottom part of the pickup of the microphone is really doing nothing. And you need more microphones to get horizontal coverage. Um, so I get them fairly close in, but on the other hand, you don't want to pick up individual singers. So it's that balance of having a nice present sound on the choir. 

Um, and it's a challenge, but without picking, starting to pick up individual singers, never, you know, the wider the microphone, absolutely the better. If you can get, you know, definitely cardioids, if you can get wide cardioids, that's great. Um, But not hypers, not super cardioids, for two reasons. You're going to pick up less people, and you're going to, that lobe at the back, which everyone forgets about, you're going to start picking up more percussion, you know, because the percussion is right in front. 

Sean Walker: so something like a 414 in wide cardioid or do you have a different choice for that? No, no. 

Paul Bevan: I tend to use small, small diaphragm condensers, um, and there's some DP, I forget which ones now this, um, there was, I'm trying to remember what I used recently at the, uh, we just did six shows of, uh, um, the third Lord of the Rings film at the Royal Albert Hall, and they had something. They had a microphone that was like a wide cardioid, but pencil condenser. 

First of all, it looks better for the audience because you barely, you know, with a small condenser, you can't see them. And it's kind of, you know, from the audience. Um, it 

Andy Leviss: say in DPA it's the, the 50s, so it would be like either the 2015 or the 4015. 

Paul Bevan: I think you're right. Um, and it was great because you're picking up more people. The more people you can pick up on the microphone, the better it is. So yeah, that's it. 

Sean Walker: That's 

Andy Leviss: I feel like, and I feel like wide cardio is one of those patterns we don't think about often, so 

Paul Bevan: No, everyone wants to use hypercardioids because they think, Oh, you get more gain because, you know, you're not getting as much pickup on the sides. Like I say, they forget about what's, you know, that little lobe on the back. And that could be picking up a wedge, it could be picking up front fill, you know, it doesn't always give you more gain. 

You know, there's no such thing as free gain. You know, if you lose it from the sides, you're going to start getting it out the back of the microphone. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, and that's, I'm, I'm actually looking up the pickup pattern of like the, the 2015 right now, and it's, it's fairly astoundingly flat in, in the back. It's like, at like 16k you get a little bit of a low, but anything below that is like, 

Paul Bevan: yeah, who can hear that anymore? 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: Huh? 

Andy Leviss: Uh, so I know the, you had also mentioned the, the Beatles orchestral thing. And so again, like we've talked about doing like choir with orchestra, like what, like what other, like different challenges and like solutions do you have to come up with when it's more of like that rock 

Paul Bevan: So yeah, the um, so for most of the orchestra, the film orchestra things, and the purely classical thing, I don't use clip ons. I use No, nice, nice condensers. Um, but 4099s under the right circumstances can sound really natural. And if you have a rock band on stage, you're going to have to use clip ons. 

That's for absolutely sure. Um, I was talked into, you know, we've been doing this thing where we, so the Beatles singers, we bring the band and the orchestra and they're kind of set up in the middle and there's strings on one side and brass on the other. So the strings are right next to the rhythm section. 

And I was, uh, I was talked on one. One show early in the, uh, in the project into not using clip ons because the musicians wouldn't allow it. It was disastrous. You know, no matter how close you got in with the, with the conventional mics, you just can't get the separation. And I can say 4099s, I was very resistant to them because I, I liked the idea of just using. 

conventional mics and capturing what what the instrument just sounded like by being a little bit off and you get more harmonics that way. But 4099s can sound pretty realistic if they're put in the right place and 

Andy Leviss: And like, in that situation, are you doing any, any like reverb or processing to make them sound a little more spacious? Or are you just getting what you need with placement and kind of embracing what it is? 

Paul Bevan: I find most of the venues we play are so reverberant that Adding more reverb just takes away from the detail. You're already trying to get detail in the mix. So a prime example, so Danny Elfman writes this quirky, busy, but in a great way, uh, music. You've got, so he'll write a two bar phrase, that's played on the tuba, then it's played on the piccolo, then it's played on the piano, then it's sung in the choir, and then it's played on the violins. 

And this two bar phrase bounces through the orchestra, so everything has to be balanced, because if otherwise, it just drops out at some point. And it's got to have the detail, so you hear the same detail in all the different instruments. So, um, 

Andy Leviss: It's funny, I never thought of that and I'm now like playing those pieces in my head and also realizing that that sort of makes Danny Elfman the edge of film scoring. 

Paul Bevan: That's, that's exactly, that's his signature sound and it's so much fun to mix. Um, but it's such a challenge because like I say, you have to make a piccolo the same level as a, as a 

Andy Leviss: I mean, that's a 

Paul Bevan: Without 

Andy Leviss: Piccolo players I know aim for every day. 

Paul Bevan: I actually just worked with a piccolo player who, when she played, it didn't take your eye out. It's so 

Andy Leviss: That's T T T Text her name. We'll all put her on speed dial. 

Paul Bevan: Dallas Symphony, she 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. 

Andy Leviss: Um, so I know, like, particularly with film scoring, I know, like, a lot of pieces will have, like, solo, you know, solo lines or features as well, is that our Are you, like, is that coming through naturally, or are you spot miking or doing anything particular for, like, solo 

Paul Bevan: I don't do anything, oh, occasionally. So for Lord of the Rings, there were a couple of features where the Concertmaster plays, In a different style. So he'll imitate a Hardanger fiddle, which is a Norwegian instrument. Um, and he'll, uh, on another part, he'll play in a style to emulate a Sarangi, which is Eastern sounding, um, string instrument. 

So as in search of Sarangi, um, so. Uh, so I put a clip on on the concert master and then put that on different inputs and then process it differently. So the Sarangi is a very metallic, very short reverb, just to try and emulate this kind of, you know, eastern mystical elf kingdom kind of sound. Um, but for the most part, if an oboe player has a feature for, you know, 8 bars. 

Usually the microphones I have covering the rest of it with a dB boost is enough to, to, um, to get that out. And I work really closely with the conductors and I'll say, okay, that feature got to be louder, you know, I don't know what, if it's written down, get them to play it out a little bit more. So a lot of it comes from the dynamics from the players. 

And I have to do kind of minimal boosting. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome  

Andy Leviss: cool, because I'm always interested to get approaches in that, because, like, we've got a number of friends who do different orchestral style events and take very different approaches to that, so it's, it's interesting to see what works, what works for different folks there. 

Um, 

Paul Bevan: because you don't want the sound of the instrument to change just because they have a feature for a few bars. You don't want it all of a sudden to be like super present. You want it to still sound like the same instrument. It's a little bit more featured. 

Andy Leviss: I mean, it's right there in the name. Um, see, and there goes the dog joining us. Um, I was going to say, did you want to talk a little bit about how, like, how that works as far as, like, keeping, like, the technical side of it to keep the, like, conductor and the orchestra in time when you're doing the film and, like, how much of that comes into play in your world versus how much of that you don't have to worry about and you're just following along for the ride? 

Paul Bevan: Well, um, the studios, uh, and the producers of these films get hold of, or they produce a different version of the film for the conductor. And this is a system called Auricle, which has been in use in movie scoring for a long time. And it's basically a series of punches and streamers that gives the tempo. 

It gives a standby. It gives a go. Auricle Uh, and it gives a stop at the end of a section, so the conductor is watching on a video monitor in front of them, a version of the film that's being projected. But with all these visual cues and then on some of the films that there's also a click track. So for instance, on Lord of the Rings, uh, the conductors don't use a click track because there's nothing that has to be very tightly, uh, synced. 

If it gets off by, A bar or a half of a bar of songs, they hit certain downbeats, then it's fine. But on, uh, Nightmare Before Christmas, because you're watching characters singing on screen, it's got to be 100 percent in sync all the time. So there, the entire orchestra is on click, just to make sure everyone stays in time with the, um, with, with the vocals. 

Same with Amadeus. Oh, Amadeus is another one which I hadn't mentioned. Um, same thing. We have a, Because I think there are something like 12 different opera singers in the film, you couldn't really emulate that live, so that comes off the tape. And it's the same thing, because the orchestra is playing it with this, uh, taped orchestra, uh, opera singer, they have to be 100 percent in sync with it. 

So then we use click for 

Sean Walker: Dude, what a fun challenge. What a cool gigs those are. That's 

Paul Bevan: I can't believe, you know, it's one of those, I can't believe I 

Sean Walker: that's awesome. 

Paul Bevan: It's so much 

Andy Leviss: Those are the best days. 

Paul Bevan: Yeah, it 

Andy Leviss: And it's wild, because it's funny, like, I mean, I've, like I said, I've always known you as somebody who does that. Like, I didn't realize how, like, you basically, like, helped invent that genre that now kind of has exploded all over. That's, 

Paul Bevan: Yeah, myself and Jeff Markiewicz, who is a great show caller and production manager. We started off with Lord of the Rings 16 years ago And it keeps going. It's like every time we think, ah, this has got to be winding down It's, you know, we get a bunch more. Like I said, we just did six performances of The Return of the King at the Royal Albert Hall. 

It all sold out, 6, 000 people a night. 

Andy Leviss: I, I mean, I'd be so curious to see the data, like you were saying before, on, like, if that's working as, like, the gateway drug to get people into, like, more classical shows. Because, like, like, I was just, saw a meme come across Facebook this morning basically saying, like, you know, symphony orchestras are basically 1800s cover bands. And, and it. 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. Amadeus, they like playing. They like playing Amadeus cause they all know it. And you know, in this Mozart, you know, there was, there was definitely, you know, in the, in the days when orchestras were doing pops concerts and it was mostly like cabaret singers. They hated it because the string players had just been doing these long whole note footballs and they just like, they hated doing it. 

But now some of these film scores are a real challenge. I mean Danny's stuff is definitely a challenge to play and they, you know, they like it a little bit more because they're not just being asked to play stupid, you know, banal arrangements. 

Andy Leviss: And, and all these shows are, it's with like the local house like orchestra wherever you're doing the show. It's not like you're traveling with all the musicians. 

Paul Bevan: Not at all. We, uh, on a lot of the rings, we bring the soprano, um, who sings all the, you know, the big songs and the, the big song over the credits, but everyone else is local. Um, so a typical schedule would be, we would go in, do a choir rehearsal separately, you know, just with piano, and then we start doing, and we might do two or three orchestra rehearsals, and then usually at least two, three or four performances. 

You know, these things are very popular. They sell very well. 

Andy Leviss: And at that point, like when they're, when they're doing like a choral orchestra at the piano, are you at all involved in that or they're just doing their music for us on their own and you're dealing with 

Paul Bevan: Well, it depends. Whenever possible, we try and do rehearsals in the hall with the PA. But sometimes, the first time I get to mix it is at the dress rehearsal. No, it costs so much. You know, there are various costs in hiring the orchestra, paying for the rights to use the film, which is something that everyone forgets. 

The studio has to be paid to allow us to use the film. Um, and then us, you know, and I'm, you know, I'm not cheap. So the costs in doing these shows are high, so sometimes, if the orchestra is based in the hall, then we get to use the hall, but often, if we're doing something at Wembley Arena, they want to rent it for as little time as possible versus going into a rehearsal room with the orchestra. 

So that's the other challenge. Sometimes I only ever get to hear the orchestra once before we do the first performance. 

Andy Leviss: That keeps it exciting. 

Sean Walker: dude. That's super cool. It's funny. My, uh, my mom was the principal flutist in the Wenatchee Valley Symphony for a number of years. And I saw also in the Seattle Philharmonic. And so she's done a bunch of those kinds of, of shows where some artists would fly in and do it. And. They always thought it was super fun because it was different than what they were normally doing, you know what I mean? 

So while it is a challenge, you know, I mean typically speaking the the pop music is much simpler than the classical music They were playing before and so they can read along real fast and go. Yeah, I got it Done and rip through it, but it was always fun So from the other side of that like everybody's having a good time on those, you know, what a fun what a fun day 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. Right. 

Sean Walker: I want to do, I want to do some of those. 

Paul Bevan: um, I, by all 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. 

Paul Bevan: come out and play. It's fun. Yeah. 

Sean Walker: Uh oh, Andy's got a serious look at his face. 

Paul Bevan: Let's 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Totally. Oh, that's funny. Well, what are you working on next? Anything you can talk about or I just not ask? 

Paul Bevan: Uh, next, um, uh, let me see, um, Big Up, you know, I don't know if people are familiar around the country with the, um, the Upfronts season, but all the, uh, TV stations based in New York do big presentations for their advertisers. And it's all about getting the advertising dollars. So, um, generally April, May is when it happens. 

So I'm just about to do an upfront for a major retailing company who also take 

Sean Walker: I've never done that, but Andy is super familiar with that. 

Paul Bevan: but ABC, CBS. 

Andy Leviss: I am, I am deep in Vectorworks drawings for, for the upfront 

Sean Walker: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: this year right now. 

Paul Bevan: yeah, and um, and the thing is, there's so much money, um, riding on a successful outcome because if a company had a disastrous show and the advertiser said, you know what, we were going to spend, 

Sean Walker: million, but nope, we're out. 

Paul Bevan: like 500 million with you this year for our advertising, but actually we're going to take it to company Y instead, it would be disastrous. 

So although there are not always very challenging shows The stakes are so high in 

Andy Leviss: there's so much stress 

Sean Walker: I'm in. Let's go. I want to do it. Andy, call me. What are we doing? 

Andy Leviss: right? Um, yeah, and I mean, and then you get the 

Paul Bevan: that and then a, 

Andy Leviss: I mean, I know I have some friends who were on, uh, a certain major broadcast networks one last year, when. What, a day and a half before their executive announced, oh hey, I'm no longer the advertising executive here, I'm gonna go run Twitter. Like, two days before the upfront, 

Sean Walker: Oh no. 

Paul Bevan: Oh, 

Andy Leviss: my friends were on that, it was like, oof, I feel for y'all, heh, 

Paul Bevan: yeah, yeah. I did a major one for another, uh, major adv uh, uh, uh, Broadcast Network for 6 years at Carnegie Hall. And it was so much fun because one year we had the Who play, another year we had Stephen Colbert as the, as the host, and it was always, you know, Something really fun about them, even though there's a lot of pressure on them. 

They bring in like the top talent just to wow all the advertisers. So that part 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, it's, that's like one of the, up there in like the level of corporate events, like you get the best of both like the stuff we love about corporate events, the stuff we hate about corporate events, and like top tier music acts all kinda thrown together in 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. Yeah. It's great. And especially being in New York, cause these people are generally available. So, you know, they're easier to bring in. Although for some of the, some of the corporate and some of the special events, things, people were bringing acts from all over the country. So last night I was doing the Time 100 Gala. 

The Jazz at Lincoln Center and they brought Dua Lipa over from the UK and it was fantastic. I mean, amazing, amazing performer 

Andy Leviss: That's what I was helping load in the other day, and yeah, it's funny, for weeks I've had Dua Lipa stuck in my head, and I'd finally gotten it out of my head, and then I walk in and see all the loading paperwork and cases, and it was like, and now we've got Levitating stuck in my head again for the rest of the week. 

Paul Bevan: Oh. And their crew, oh my God. The absolute consummate professionals. I mean, um, both on their talent and their just, uh, their approach and their friendliest, they were great. It was just a great 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, we should reach out to those folks and see 

Sean Walker: I've always, 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. Will, their front of house engineer was just amazing. 

Sean Walker: oh, that's awesome, dude. I got a nine year old daughter. So that's always stuck in my head between, between the Dua Lipa records and Barbie soundtrack and just blip, blip, blip, blip. Always, dude. Always. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and that's a, and that's a, that's a little bit of a challenging room too. Like it's, Paul Paul's nodding like you're understating just a little bit. 

Sean Walker: what room was that? Sorry. Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: the, the appell room at Jazz at Lincoln Center, which, uh, Jim Van Bergen is the house head there who we've had on and we sort of, we got so into like many other aspects of Jim's career that we keep threading Devon back on to talk about jazz a bit. 

But it's, if you've, 

Paul Bevan: But the most. Visually stunning room, I think, that you could possibly work in. It's 

Andy Leviss: it's, if you've ever been to New York and been to Columbus Circle, where there's like a big column with the Statue of Columbus on it, if you stand there and look at the, at the, like, it's, it's not called the Time Warner Center anymore, I forgot what the building's called now, but there's a big glass wall, just like overlooking Columbus Circle, that's the upstage wall. And it's just like, there's a huge shade that can come in if it needs to, but it'll come out and you'll start a show with like the sun setting behind the 

Sean Walker: How cool, dude. 

Andy Leviss: wall. 

Paul Bevan: So, so you're looking straight down 59th street with all the lights and Central Park is just on the left. All the skyscrapers are all on the right. It's just gorgeous. But the house PA is fantastic, but it's not really made for loud acts. So for, for Dua Lipa, we had to bring in, we had to supplement it with a grand stack. 

So, um, Maya melodies for the house flown PA, um, and DMB V's. with V subs for the ground stack. So the challenge that I had was trying to make those two 

Sean Walker: And not let the V outrun the melody by a long 

Paul Bevan: Maya, well, much louder, but also the DMBs, super warm. The melodies, super detailed. So trying to get them to have the same, you know, Um, tonality and, you know, the same reaction at, at the volume that the band was going to be playing at. 

But then I also, because we had to bring the PA up for sightlines for a TV show, the Vs were doing more of the house for the corporate part, for the speeches and for the, uh, all the presentations. So I also had to make it so that the, the corporate parts sounded the same in both speakers as well. Um, so that was the challenge. 

Went well, went very 

Sean Walker: challenge. It's so like first world problems. Right. But like those are both excellent PA systems and then trying to marry them together are like, what a challenge that would have been, you know, cause one of them has got a lot more horsepower than the other one, you know, very different 

Paul Bevan: And is much, much warmer sounding. Which is great for the rock and roll part, you know, for the band part. 

Sean Walker: Totally. Dude, how cool. 

Paul Bevan: And I, and I conquered my fear, uh, of my greatest nemesis, which is the 

Sean Walker: Oh, oh. 

Paul Bevan: Shep's Pole, I'm not sure if all your listeners are familiar with it, but if you see the award shows and you see this skinny mic with two capsules on top, one is a cardioid on the bottom and the other one is a hyper, and the idea is to use the, I think, the car, I've never really. 

Figure this out entirely. Use the cardioid for shorter people. And then the hyper is on top and it's supposed to reach for anyone who's taller, but it can be a little unstable. It, um, especially because the microphone is short. So it ends up, you know, just above. People's belly button, you know, of average height, belly button. 

So it's a long way from people who are talking with a live PA. It's great for TV because you can reach as much as you want, but, but you have to be really careful, um, in reaching too much so that it doesn't start ringing. And then he's, then you ruin the TV show. So that I had a little more time with it. 

I've, I've had to use it in Carnegie hall with the challenges of those acoustics. Um, it's much harder there, but also the, um, I was using, The house Ravage PM 10. And the, the, uh, um, what's the plugin? The, um, um, 

Andy Leviss: The dance of the 

Paul Bevan: no, the, um, 

Andy Leviss: 45? 

Paul Bevan: no, the, uh, yeah, yeah. The uh, uh, I think of point source, uh, primary 

Andy Leviss: source and answer, yeah. 

Paul Bevan: uh, thing really helps, gives you three or four GB more gain, um, in situations like that. 

Non lectins, really great 

Sean Walker: 50, 45 is like cheating and I love it. I use it every time I can. 

Andy Leviss: That's, yeah, it's, it's the thing like we've talked about before that I'll always drill home is it should never be your first resort for ringing out a mic, but when you need those few extra at the end, once you've done everything else right, 

Sean Walker: No, dude. It's the icing on the cake. Once you've done all of your regular work where you're like, and then. I'm just going to take it that next 5 percent that the client goes, Oh my God, 

Paul Bevan: the hardest thing. Yeah, when you, especially when you're doing it, you're doing front of house for a TV show, because you've got the broadcast mixer who is just trying to keep it as clean as possible. And if it starts ringing in the house, There's nothing they can do about it. And sometimes you'll have a ring that you can't necessarily hear that well in the house. 

But in the truck, you'll hear this coloration. So when I'm doing front of house for TV shows, I listen to the mics on headphones, and you can hear you might have 200 that's just kind of emphasized in the room or 1k6 or whatever it is. And if you hear it in the headphones, And it's not even really ringing, you just hear this reflection from the house. 

If you EQ that out, maybe 2dB, it really cleans up the, um, the situation for the TV truck mixer. And it doesn't really affect your sound in the house that much, it doesn't take anything away. But it really cleans it up for the broadcast. So there's a, 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Andy Leviss: It's funny, you know, like people come into an episode like this thing and we're just getting cool stories and like, there's so many like, like folks go back and listen to this one a couple times because there's so many little, little knowledge bombs Paul's dropping here that I think everybody will find use out 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Fricking Paul. 

Andy Leviss: I know that's 

Sean Walker: Shure order like 20 fucking grand. Thanks, Paul. KSM 8s 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, you're welcome, Jason. 

Paul Bevan: Anytime. 

Sean Walker: Just that's fine, dude. No problem. Just. 20 of those fucking things. Thanks, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and I'll say, like, I've done, like, even on smaller, like, I've, I've, for the last few years, I've had a semi regular corporate job where I tend to bounce between covering front of house or covering the broadcast mix of it, and that, that thing Paul was just saying is such a huge thing that, like, I'll, when I'm upstairs and I'll call to the guy in front of the house, like, dude, you're ringing, do you not hear that? 

And he's like, I, no, but I'll, I'll turn it down, and then, like, a week or two later, I'll be back and be downstairs and get the same call from upstairs, and I'm like, oh. Oh. 

Paul Bevan: sometimes you just don't hear it, um, because it's so subtle, but listening on headphones will definitely, just as a check, will definitely give you an idea of where you are and what you're giving to the broadcast mixer, um, and it's hard for them because there's literally nothing they can do if that starts happening, but it's also hard when you do in front of house because if you've got a really quiet talker, And you can't hear them in the room. 

Your natural inclination is to start reaching for it because if you can't hear it in the room, people start looking at 

Andy Leviss: Mm hmm. 

Sean Walker: And your client wants you to MaxL guy people in their chairs with a OmniLav on stage. You're like, 

Paul Bevan: uh huh. 

Sean Walker: That's just not how physics works. You know, if you want to MaxL guy somebody in their chair, you got to give him a handheld. 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because often you don't get to hear these people until your show starts, so you really have no idea how much true headroom you have. That's why, like, 

Andy Leviss: hear them, they're never at the same level they are during the show, like in an empty room versus with 500 people. 

Paul Bevan: yeah, often they're louder. You'd think they would be louder in the show because of the adrenaline, but often, you know, I don't know if it's nerves, but sometimes people are quieter in the show than they are in rehearsal, because, you know, like I say, nerves kick in and people just start, you know. 

Bringing the, bringing the volume down and, and the room has changed, you know, you've got less, you know, you've got less volume in the 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and particularly in a room like the Appel where it's all hard surfaces and glass. 

Sean Walker: All right. Nerd question for you. Do you tune your PAs differently based on what you're doing for that day? Like if it's going to be orchestra or talking heads or whatever. Rock and roll, or do you have a baseline that you like and that's what works for basically all your shows? 

Paul Bevan: I think I have a bass line. The only thing would be is on orchestral shows Apart from the sound effects, there's really nothing under 100 Hz. You know, I see people that wanted to put contrabasses in the subs, or timpanis in the subs. Like, go listen to the instrument, you know. When I'm doing Amadeus, I always say, we don't need subs, because in Mozart's day, there was nothing under 100 Hz. 

There was nothing that really generated that. Maybe a thunderstorm. Um, But in general, I tend to find that I queue the PA more or less the same for everything else, because you just, you're getting rid of resonances in the room, you're getting rid of resonances in the PA. And one of, you know, one of my main things, um, is taking out enough low mid Because I think when you put a speaker in a box, you put a box in a room, there's a naturally a buildup of low mid between say 200 and 400. 

Um, and if you don't get rid of that, so what I do is I see some people who don't get rid of that. So the mix is muddy. So now they start adding high end to everything to get over that. So you can end up with a mix that's both muddy, it's still muddy, but it's also now harsh as well. And often if you clean up the low mids just to allow all the highs to get through, you don't have to boost the highs in general. 

Because there's so much energy in the highs in most PAs anyway. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Paul Bevan: So 

Sean Walker: So you're, then you're like mid range and low mids is pretty flat on your PAs And then do you taper off a little the top end to make it not so harsh and bright when you're tuning? 

Paul Bevan: No, no, no, what I'm saying is if you take out some of the, uh, if you find out the low mids are just covering everything, Just take out, you know, something big, like, usually something centered around 250. It's, it's just like a natural build up and, and then, so the way I approach mixing is that I bus everything pretty much to the main left right, and then I use that to generate matrix outputs. 

For all the, you know, left right, front fill, delays, out fills. For a number of reasons, I like to have a handle over the, on the whole PA to be able to turn the whole PA up and down. But the other thing I do is, I find if I EQ the mains And then the delays, and then, and you can turn things off individually if, if the mains are not coming off the main left, right, you can turn off matrix, you know, listen, listening just to the left, right, turn everything else off, turn those off, listen only to the front fills, but sometimes when you put them all on together, you might get a little bit of buildup of something just because now all the speakers are on and, and that gives you the main bus That you can do a little bit of kind of final EQing or dynamic EQ to, um, to get rid of the buildup that has resulted on all the speakers being on together, which you don't have when you just have individual 

Sean Walker: that. 

Paul Bevan: So 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. That's a good tip. 

Paul Bevan: yeah, I like that one, but I like having a handle on the entire PA because when the audience comes in some venues, you just want to turn it up a couple of DB. And if you had to go in and turn up all the individual zones, either in a a lake or in. Uh, on the matrices on the board. But if you have one fader that has the entire PA, then 

Sean Walker: need a go button, dude. Go! 

Andy Leviss: Just throttle. That's the DCI I always label 

Sean Walker: I got mine's labeled go with an exclamation point on my master bus. Just go. That's awesome, dude. Oh man. 

Andy Leviss: Um, yeah, I mean, like I said, there's so, so many other aspects of your career we could dig into, but that would be like a whole nother episode, so maybe, maybe we'll bring you back and do some of that, but I don't know, is there, we've been starting to ask, we've been starting to ask folks lately, like, is there anything, like, you, you wish we had asked you about the stuff we've talked about that, that we haven't thought to? 

Paul Bevan: well, I think my background was that I grew up in Wales, which is called the land of song. At my house when we were, uh, when my brother and I were growing up, we listened to, um, the Beatles, classical music, Gilbert and Sullivan, um, jazz, male voice choirs, which are a big thing in Wales, Led Zeppelin, um, we listened to every kind of possible music you can imagine. 

And I think that just really is great for ear training, because it tells you what music is supposed to sound like. I've heard some cynical people say, Oh, I hate music. And they consider themselves to be mixers. It's like, I think one of the best ways you can train to be a mixer is is to listen to music and then make all your mixes sound like that, you know, and especially from a certain era before compression on final mixes became so prevalent, because it gives you an idea, you know, it gives you an idea of where certain instruments are supposed to fall in the mix. 

It gives you an idea of the whole tonality. There were amazing engineers, In the 60s, 70s, 80s, working with really limited facilities, no proteals, no, um, no digital processing. And they made records that sounded incredible. They're warm, they're dynamic, they're not just like squashed and, and, um, and hard sounding. 

So for me, it's like, go back and listen to music, um, and, and just make, make your mixes sound like that. Make them sound, um, friendly and exciting and just, uh, you know, fun to listen 

Sean Walker: be really hard to be a mixer that didn't like music and be. Super good at it. Not that you couldn't be passable or know how to operate the gear and make a passable mix, but like things like you were just saying, sounds so different. Like a Sonata record is different than a Led Zeppelin record is different than a Dua Lipa record, and those do not get mixed the same, right? 

And even us today do not mix those the same, right? So it would, if it all comes out sounding like X, Y, Z, you're the only artist you like or whatever, right? Then it's, it's not appropriate for the. Performance. You know what I mean? So you're totally right, man. You've got to listen to a bunch of different kinds of stuff and you don't have to like it all. 

You just have to know what it's supposed to sound like, right? Like 

Paul Bevan: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: don't have to like the Beatles, but you have to know who the Beatles are and what that sounds like. So that when people play a Beatles cover, you're like, Oh, I know how to change this to make it sound like it's supposed to, you know, 

Paul Bevan: Yeah, and it carries over into things like corporate work because one of the reasons I get, um, so much corporate work is I make lavalier sound musical. You know, anyone can make them loud. Everyone can make it so you can understand what people are saying. But I like the idea of making them so that they're really pleasant to listen to, and adjusting Don't have one EQ for every microphone, because people's voices are all different. 

Don't be afraid to get in there and adjust, you know, while still having enough headroom. Adjust the The EQ on every individual lavalier to make that person's, uh, uh, voice sound pleasant. You know, if they're super muffled, just take some lows, add some highs. Um, don't be afraid to do that. Don't say, this is my EQ for all the lavaliers. 

Um, and you, on panel discussions, you'll be digging into five or six different microphones and they'll all look totally different, but that's part of the, of the, of the, of the gig. Also, you know, people going up to lecterns in the first few words, don't be afraid to just adjust it slightly to make that person sound pleasant. 

As opposed to, yes I can hear them, this EQ worked for the last person, so I'm just going to stick with it. Uh, 

Sean Walker: that shit on repeat and ingrain that into your minds. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: It's, I mean, it's a, it's a thing that's been said on, on this show many times long before our tenure that you can't teach give a shit 

Sean Walker: dude. 

Andy Leviss: and, and that is a prime example right there and that's, that's why Paul commands the rates he does because he's got give a shit coming out of his 

Sean Walker: Three bucks and a cup of coffee. I get him anytime you want. Call him. 1 900 BAD MOTHERFUCKER. 

Paul Bevan: yep, yes. That and, that, that and the Emmy. 

Sean Walker: but now I want to hear about it. 

Paul Bevan: We did seven shows at Lincoln Center with Danny Elfman's show, which is the clips from 14 different Tim Burton films and filmed two of them for PBS. Went, uh, I sent the Pro Tools session to the PBS post production mixer, uh, an incredible engineer called Ken Hahn, who has multiple Emmys for various different TV shows. 

And, uh, Ken had the session for about two hours. So, I went in for a couple of hours, because, you know, this is so different from everything else we do. You know, usually it's just very orchestral, maybe with a singer, and if you know Danny's music, it's just, you know, wacky, unconventional. So, he said, just come in and show me how you get started on a mix. 

So, I went in for two hours. Stayed for six days, and we completely remixed the entire TV show, had an absolute ball just, uh, remixing all this stuff, um, and they entered us for the Emmys. And we won, you know, we were this tiny PBS television show up against the Oscars and Anthony Bourdain and The Voice and we won, you know, we were completely shocked, it was kind of these, one of these things we never imagined that would ever happen. 

Yeah, you have to enter, um, as well as the whole show, you have to enter a 15 minute piece just as a taster for people. So people were saying, oh, Big Fish or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Edward Scissorhands. And I said, no, it has to be Batman. So we played the Batman suite and I think that's what did it because 

Sean Walker: Dude, that's awesome. Congratulations. Good work. 

Paul Bevan: It's like, you know, and that's just for a house engineer. We don't win awards, you know, not even a Parnelli, um, which we talked about earlier before. Uh, but, um, so it was kind of a shock to, you know, to have an award. It's fantastic. 

Sean Walker: don't know, man. 

Andy Leviss: really cool. 

Sean Walker: It was pretty cool, like, Front of House Engineers and Parnelli's is where I'm going with this one. It was pretty cool at NAMM this year to like, Pooch flew in, ripped a rock show, collected a Parnelli and flew out. And I was like, man, that's a, that's a ripper, dude. 

Andy Leviss: It's about as rockstar 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, totally, 

Andy Leviss: mixer. 

Sean Walker: And his, and his mix had a killer, dude. It was, it was quite a feat, but okay. I'm back to what we're talking about. Sorry for the tangent. 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: well we should look, I'm gonna, I'm, I'm trying to see if there's anywhere that like that show is still streaming. I see, I definitely see a few like snippets of it online that we can put in 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah, dude. I want to see Batman for sure, dude. 

Paul Bevan: Yeah. 

Andy Leviss: don't know if the whole thing is 

Paul Bevan: Uh, it's spectacular. And I use that, you know, it's my, there are a number of different tracks that I use for, um, for EQ in the pa, 

Sean Walker: Do tell, do tell. 

Paul Bevan: but as a final, I have two. Oh. Um, happiness is easy by Talk. Talk, um, nobody's fault by, but mine by John Jones, that has a little kind of extra three K in it. So I find that if you take some of that out, um, not all of it. 

It just helps to smooth out the high end of the PA. It's all about choosing pieces of music that, for me, that emphasize certain frequencies. I have a jazz version of Black Hole Sun by the Stellar Starlight Trio, which is I can't even remember, I was given it for something. I play it, but it's kind of thick in the low mids, and when I play that, it helps me to get rid of all the, you know, the, um, the cloudiness that can kind of inhibit your mix. 

Um, but then as a final, two things I play, I play the Batman Suite, because there's so much detail in it, and I, and I mixed it so I know that if I can hear all these individual instruments, then I'm in good shape. And then From my friend Eric Von Ransom, who is an amazing mixer, I got a piece called the Eric Hoffman's Announcer Test, which some of you may know as One Hen, One Hen, Two Ducks. 

It's a glorious test, because if you're doing corporate, you can play as much music as you like through the PA. doesn't tell you how speech is going to sound in the room. So it's just, um, uh, it was the announcer test I was told for, um, people who wanted to be an announcer at Radio City in the 1940s. This is the newer version of it. 

It's great quality, but it tells you what speech is going to sound like in the room. So like I say, you can play as much music as you like. This actually tells you what your speech is going to sound 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I'm trying to remember the the other speech test that pops around that I used to hear all the time was the the animal medicine lady I think it was a BBC 

Paul Bevan: Oh, I don't know that one 

Andy Leviss: At some point there was an article that maybe it was Fulcrum Acoustics used it, but it's a British lady talking about, <bad British accent> the trick to giving medicine to animals is to put a dab of peanut butter on the nose of the animal. 

Paul Bevan: Now, the only trouble is British people sound clear, you know, no matter what. Oh, pardon me. Mark Fiore, uh, Mark Fiore also has a great one. I can't remember what it is. It's like a techie, like, um, uh, discombobulator. Some kind of invention thing that, um, that's hilarious. Mark 

Andy Leviss: I'll have to text Mark and ask him, cool. Well, um, yeah, it's been so great catching up with you, Paul. I know, it's, it's funny, I was, I, I, I was gonna say, like, I haven't seen you in so long, and then I ran into you earlier this week, was 

Paul Bevan: I know, that's right. And as you, as, as usual, I've overstayed my 

Sean Walker: we were going to talk to you about that, but no, just kidding, dude, thank you so much for hanging out. It was great to chat with you and 

Paul Bevan: Oh, absolutely. My pleasure. 

Sean Walker: thanks for all the tips and tricks. Everybody's going to love 

Paul Bevan: Oh, great. Uh, 

Andy Leviss: yeah, absolutely, and, and since Sean did those things, I'll thank RCF and Allen and Heath, our sponsors, uh, for hanging in there, and I'll thank everybody out there for listening, and, uh, join us next time. 

Sean Walker: That's the pod y'all. See you next week. 

Andy Leviss: Take care, everybody.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green