Hugh Johnson
VINCE GILL
What does Vince Gill need from his front of
house engineer?
Vince is not alone in his perception of what
the front of house should do, but he is in
the minority of guys who have very little say
about what I do. He trusts me completely.
Early on in our relationship he got a lot
of feedback from producers and management
that I was doing what needed to be
done. I get very few complaints. He does
meet-and-greets after the shows and always
gets good reports of how good it sounds,
so he’s never asked me to do anything other
than what I do, and over the years that
hasn’t changed. He has a somewhat different
relationship with our monitor engineer, Sam
Parker. Vince has more interactive comments with Sam because of the nature of the monitor
mix. As front of house engineer, my primary
duty is to be the conduit from band to
audience in most all situations. My job is to
deliver what the band is playing, and hopefully
to do that in a way that is as consistent
as possible throughout the room, so that the
people in the front row aren’t blasted and the
people in the back row are able to hear.
Vince has always had very good bands. Some
of them have been with us since the beginning.
They’re all studio-quality players and
they give me the ultimate gift every night of
great sounds and not having to do a lot of
polishing. Other than that, the biggest challenge
is tuning the PA. Sound Image supplies
our equipment and is the best sound company
in the world, in my opinion. We carry
our monitors, monitor board, front of house
console, microphones, stands, cables, etc.,
but we depend on the venue or promoter to
supply racks and stacks—the PA and amplifiers—
to our specifications. I tune the PA so
that it lines up with what I want the band to
sound like, and I don’t have to adjust every
single input on the console every day.
Tell us about his equipment, setup and
signal chain.
Sam and I both mix on Digidesign Profiles, a
great digital console that provides us with an
almost unlimited amount of resources. From
a sophisticated snapshot feature to plug-ins
that emulate some of the best studio-quality
rack gear on the planet, and great sounding
preamps, these consoles have just about
everything needed to mix, without using any
outboard gear. We have had a Shure microphone
endorsement for about 15 years and
exclusively use their products…. I recently
began using the KSM313 [ribbon microphone]
on Vince’s guitar amps in conjunction
with a standard SM57, and wow, what a great
combo. Great low end with just enough bite,
and very little EQ.
As far as blending the guitars together—our
steel player, Russ Pahl, also plays electric, our
acoustic player, Jeff White, also does background
vocals, and our rhythm guitarist, Tom
Britt, is also a soloist—they take care of a lot
of that. I can only manipulate the sound of
what they’re playing, so I make sure they fit
together. It’s not unlike any instrument: they
all have to fit. The method I’ve learned over
35 years of mixing is to take certain frequencies
out of one instrument because another
instrument needs that range. You weave frequencies
together and find separation in the
sounds so that tones don’t overlap.
The other thing that’s very important about
guitar sounds in particular is mic selection
and placements. I find the right mic and
the right spot on the cone and move things
very little after I find the sweet spot. For
example, on most guitar speakers, the most
air is moving near the outside edge of the
speaker cone; to be more specific, the most
low end comes from the outside edge of
the cone. Generally speaking, the closer you
get to the middle of the speaker, the thinner
the tone. Since most guitar players—at least
ours do—stand with their guitar amps on
the floor, pointed toward the backs of their
legs, their tone tends to be thinner than you
would want in the PA. So I always go for a
spot right on the outside edge of the cone,
get the warmth I am looking for, and have to
take less of the high-mids out of the channel
EQ. For a few years now, my favorite guitar
amp mic is the Shure KSM32, but I am quickly
moving to the new KSM313/SM57 combo.
I’m very specific about mic placement, as it is
one of the most important parts of the job.
Our crew is very good about duplicating what
I’m looking for every day. That also goes for
drums, the Leslie cabinet connected to the
B3, everything. Vince doesn’t use 100-watt
amps much anymore. He uses Fender Deluxe,
Rivera, Goodsell and 65Amps. His choices are
mostly based on the venue. His stage volume
has come down considerably over the years.
It’s different when you have to fill up an
arena. We did an acoustic tour in 2008 and
they all played very quietly onstage. He really
enjoyed the lower volume.
Vince plays hard, especially the electric stuff,
and that’s why you see him change guitars
on just about every song—he plays hard
enough that he plays them until they are out
of tune. Our guitar tech, Benny Garcia, is tuning
all night. Vince has an arsenal of guitars
at home. But on the road he carries probably
six electrics: Fender Strats and Teles, Gibson
335s and Les Pauls, and a couple of custom
jobs, and four or five acoustics: Martin 000s
and Gibson J-200s. His main guitars are a ’53
Tele and a ’64 Strat. He has a couple with
alternate tunings.
What does it take to be a good front of
house engineer?
The answer sounds overly simple: good ears.
Not necessarily good hearing, although that
is important, but knowing how to put sounds
together, being able to take what the band
gives you and make it work for the audience
in the environment in which you’re playing.
With Vince, I’ve always got a great band
to work with, so that is seldom a problem.
Acoustical challenges are always a part of
the job, and being able to deal with that on
a daily basis and being consistent with your
tuning is very important. Being able to take
the left and right brain functions, the art and
technical sides of mixing, and making them
work together—that’s what it takes.