Guy Sebastian

There’s no denying that Guy Sebastian is a very talented performer with an amazing vocal range and the ability to play a wide variety of instruments. The audience at Sydney’s Star Events Centre were pumped before he took to the stage and the vibe was electrifying from start to finish.

FOH engineer George Gorga also looks after monitors which isn’t a mammoth task for him as the band control their own monitor mix on their phones via an app – a process George describes as fantastic.

“Guy owns his own a Midas M32C Digital Rackmount Mixer with a DL32 32-input / 16-output Stage Box and he really wanted to use them to try get some consistency, mainly for the one-off corporate shows that we do,” explained George. “We decided to try it on this tour so at the beginning of rehearsals I set all the gains, EQs and reverb effects which took about ½ an hour, after that I let the musicians build their own in-ear mixes. I didn’t hear from the band for the entire four days of rehearsals as they happily controlled their own mixes on their phones. In fact, during the tour I’ve very rarely heard anything from them about monitors.”

George remarked that the band love this set up as they are in control of their own destiny although all they can really control with the app are the faders of their own mix with George doing anything else required. Each singer also has their own effects unit so they’re not interfering with each other.

A Nowsonic 2.4Ghz /5Ghz Stage Router is used on stage which George says delivers excellent coverage.

“I run more than 32 input channels at FOH but everything the band needs for monitors fits into the M32 channel count,” explained George. “I also have an AUX feed from the FOH console running back into the MIDAS Talkback input for any extra lines that may pop up. This set up may not work for every act but it really suits this one.”

George has been mixing for Guy since the beginning of the year, mainly corporate and promo gigs, but this is the first concert tour he has done with him. He was running his weapon of choice at FOH – an Avid Profile – saying that although he occasionally uses an Avid S6L, the Profile is always reliable and does what he needs it to do. Plus he can get one pretty much anywhere in the world. He added that there are no great mysteries to mixing this show.

“It’s a stock standard console with just a couple of Waves plugins; the C4 Multiband Compressor, the SSL Buss Compressor and the TrueVerb Reverb that I run on Guy’s vocal, ” added George. “The rest is all standard plugins. I have a Smart Research C2 Compressor as an external unit inserted on the main stereo buss, something I take everywhere and find it hard to mix without it these days. There’s also MADI card in the FOH rack as we multitrack record every show.”

The tour travelled an audio control package from JPJ Audio but utilised in-house PAs with George commenting that all of the venues they played had decent speaker systems. Extra gear was added locally when required, mainly subs and maybe some extra front fills.

Guy, who has an endorsement with Sennheiser, used an EM 2050 two channel wireless receiver, two SKM 2000 handheld wireless transmitters, along with two KK 205 Neumann Condenser Microphone capsules.

“I’m a real Shure person and I hadn’t really worked with this setup before,” said George. “However, it just seems to suit his voice really well and sounds amazing”. The backing singers are on Shure Beta 58s with UR radios and everyone is on Sennheiser SR2000 IEMs of which we have eight sends.” Guy also uses a Sennheiser EW500 G4 radio system for his acoustic guitar.

On stage are a pair of L-Acoustics 112P wedges for Guy, one 108P on Guy’s piano riser when it is rolled in plus a d&b Q-SUB for the drums – again all run off the Midas app. George can control them from his computer at FOH if needed, all on WiFi but he runs a Cat5 cable too as a backup.

This article first appeared in the print edition of CX Magazine November 2019. CX Magazine is Australia and New Zealand’s only publication dedicated to entertainment technology news and issues. Read all editions for free or search their archive www.cxnetwork.com.au