FOH Engineer Joseph Hellow Chooses Waves for the Post Malone Beerbongs & Bentleys Tour

	Joseph Hellow

FOH sound engineer Joseph Hellow chooses plug-ins from Waves Audio for the Post Malone Beerbongs & Bentleys Tour, taking on the biggest venues in the US, UK, Europe, and Australia off the success of the artist's multi-platinum second album, Beerbongs & Bentleys.

Hellow comments, on his setup, "I'm using the DiGiCo SD10 console with Stadius 32-bit mic pre-amps. At the FOH position we have a Waves rig setup with two SoundGrid Extreme Servers, an Apogee Symphony I/O MKII SoundGrid and an active DiGiGrid MGB coax interface to record each show at 96k and utilize for a virtual sound check; I play back the recording of the previous night's show, and compare room tones empty and compensate for 'human baffles' based on the particular venues' occupancy."

Bringing Post Malone's vocal sound heard on his recordings to the live show, he explains, "As always, the vision of bringing the studio to the stage can be tricky and using Waves plug-ins in my signal chains makes this a reality. To produce Posty's vocal sound, I use Waves plug-ins within snapshots via Waves MultiRack, and our DiGiCo console. Posty has a unique live feel and energy that he brings to every show which enhances the fan experience. One thing that sets us apart from most is the analog hardware I bring with me every show. My rack gear includes an API 2500, 2x Shelford Channel Strips, 2x channels of the Neve 5045 Primary Source Enhancer, and a Neve stereo Master Buss Processor. To keep the analog conversion under control, I use, hands-down, the best audio converters for my live setup, the Apogee Symphony I/O MKII SoundGrid. So, there are multiple layers of compression, and every piece of gear is doing a small amount, but it's giving us big results and that massive impact to rip your face off!

I also utilize the Waves H-Delay Hybrid Delay as one of my FX processors in order to emulate the texture and quality heard on his albums. I have each song's tempo saved as a snapshot, so it's super easy to just hit the next snap shot or pre-fire each song's tempo settings for Post's passion-driven vocals."

Hellow adds, about using plugins, "I run a variety of Waves plugins during the show via MultiRack SoundGrid from a Mac mini, including but never limited to the SSL G-Master Buss Compressor, L3 Multimaximizer, L2 Ultramaximizer, H-Delay and the F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQ -- which I specifically like for enhancing the sonic characteristics of the backing tracks. I also use the F6 plugin on my master buss chain during the show. As I bring the volume levels up throughout the night, I have the F6's threshold control-set to tame the harmful frequencies that might jump out, in order to make our roller coaster of a set sound great at all optimal sound levels for our show."

Hellow concludes, "Working for Post Malone is a dream come true. I'm trusted to do what I was hired to do -- make it sound right every show! The Posty Co. crew is a great camp, and we work together to ensure the sound is the best it can be every night, no matter what deficits stand in our way."