This year I’m honoured to be sound engineering on tour with ‘An Evening of Radiohead’, in which we’re visiting 20 of the most prestigious cathedrals, abbeys, minsters, and concert halls across the UK. This is my first tour of this size and an incredible opportunity to put my engineering capabilities to the test.

Each venue sounds completely different and brings its own unique set of challenges. My aim is to achieve the highest level of clarity in these massive reverberant spaces and maintain as much of a ‘gig’ feel to the sound as possible: Powerful bass, clear transients, and a nice volume across the whole Cathedral. I also need to do my part in delivering an accurate and exciting account of the original music – something that the band do very well. As a previously casual Radiohead fan, I’ve gladly immersed myself in their back catalogue to become familiar with all arrangements and production.

Let Me In have resourced this show incredibly well, which amongst other things has allowed me to place multiple sets of delay speakers throughout each venue; a necessity when most audiences are spanning the entire length and breadth of the cathedral. The band and crew have become accustomed to my small selection of reference tracks for room EQ and the annoying sound of a click track while I fine tune my speaker delays. I try to be as quick as possible for everyone’s sanity!

We keep a silent stage to maximise clarity. There are no amps and no stage monitors, and everyone is on IEMs with their own personal mixer (Allen and Heath ME-1). The only noise is from acoustic instruments. I’m sure my job would be made 10 times harder with stage monitors and amps. During the first leg of the tour, it was hard to get the grand piano right. We couldn’t help its proximity to the front speakers due to the stage layout, so I had to cut otherwise nice frequencies to avoid feedback and regularly put the cover back on to help with bleed. This is after trying a variety of microphones from DPA 4099s to SM57s (the DPAs sounded the best, ‘no surprises’ there)! Thankfully, for the second leg we have changed to a Nord electric piano, which sounds great and has made my life much easier.

I’m using an Allen and Heath SQ-5, which I’ve found to be a very easy and flexible desk. I’ve usually got around 32 channels coming in, which can fluctuate with slight changes in instrumentation. I run the subs through an aux, in which I send kick, bass and some synths, and I run the various combinations of delay speakers and the centre fill from the 3 available matrices. Of course, the real character of the sound comes from the performers. It’s fun to see people crowding around the stage in the interval looking at the Ondes Martenot played by Josh Semans, or the variety of guitar pedals lining the stage, not to mention the many synth patches that they can’t even see.

Reactions on social media have been amazing to read. We care deeply about delivering the best possible performance every single night, so it’s really rewarding to hear how much people have enjoyed themselves. The best part of this tour is the fact I get to travel around the country with my friends, making great music in the most incredible spaces, all while having a laugh along the way. Everyone in the band and crew works extremely hard to make these shows happen, particularly our amazing producer, manager and vocalist, Chris Buckle. I’m very proud to be a part of it and hope you see you at one of our upcoming dates.

Below are some showreel style studio recordings I recorded back in January with the band.