#STARLIGHT MUSE STEMS SEPARATE DRUMS PRO#

McDSP AE600 Active EQ on bass guitars' distortion channels and vocals (replaced the BSS DPR-901 dynamic eqalizer).

#STARLIGHT MUSE STEMS SEPARATE DRUMS PRO#

Avid Pro Subharmonic (replaced the Dbx 120 subharmonic synth rack unit) for drums.Empirical Labs EL8 Distressors and BSS Audio 901II multiband compressors for vocals and various other elements (Carolan reffers to the latter as his swiss army knife)Īs far as digital plug-ins go (used through the Avid console itself), he has listed the following:.Yamaha SPX2000s for snare reverb (on plate), vocal doubling and distortions.Eventide H3000 D/SE for vocal processing.Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor for vocals.Empirical Labs UBK-modded Fatso and Mäag Audio EQ4 for 'kit stem' (anything that is not a kick and snare).SPL Transient Designer for toms, kick and snare.Rupert Neve Designs 5059 16-channel summing mixer (using 2x mono + 7x stereo).His racks have been filled with the following gear during the recent tours: With using outboard gear since starting out with Muse in 2001, he is familiar with the gear and the colour it brings to the sound, and is thus still using racks, despite upgrading to a digital console. (examples include the gig at Cologne's Mediapark and the gig at Kentucky's Jim Beam Distillery. His most-used S6L console is the one with 32 faders (Avid S6L-32D), but he has also been using the 16-fader one (Avid S6L-16C) for a few gigs, where he had to travel lighter. In terms of inputs, Muse ran a total of 112 inputs to the mixing board for the Simulation Theory tour in particular.Ĭarolan is currently usin an array of Avid Venue S6L consoles. With the Avid console though, he is able to switch between the XL48 and the Avid preamps. In 2018, he ditched the Midas XL4 from his live setup and upgraded to a digital system, using a smaller Avid digital console, coupled with Midas's XL48 preamps in three rack units, sitting atop of the console (used for drums/bass/guitars/vocals), allowing him to keep the 'Midas' sound/colour. Occasionally, he has also used a Midas PRO6, as well as a Midas Pro 2C sidecar console, which he has coupled with the XL4. Ever since then, up until 2018, he has been using a Midas XL4 console as his main console. Muse's sound engineer (also known as a 'Front of House/FOH' engineer), Marc Carolan has been in charge of their live sound ever since the Origin of Symmetry era in 2001. Muse's playback rig is operated backstage by their systems/playback tech, Gavin Ellis. Muse's playback are ran off of Pro Tools, with the help of a custom software, called 'Stadium 2', designed by a Brighton-based live music performance developement company, called FluQE.

The playback rig also runs audio messages, which inform the crew of changes which happen during the gig. It also eliminates the need for Matt's guitar tech to do all the Whammy controlling.Īs mentioned above, backing and click tracks are operated live via an off-stage computer-based playback rig (multiple playback rigs/computers are usually used for redundancy reasons, in case anything fails on the main playback rig). During Map of the Problematique, Unsustainable, and the solos of Reapers and Thought Contagion, Matt's Whammy pedal is also synchronised to the click track via MIDI, allowing Matt to walk around on stage freely, instead of controlling the Whammy pedal. A click track is also used in some songs which do not have backing tracks in order to keep in time with synchronised guitar effects like delays, for example in ' Sing For Absolution'.

To do that, the entire band use a digital metronome (also known as a 'click track') – synchronised to the recording – playing through their In-Ear Monitors, which the audience do not hear. Since Black Holes & Revelations, the band hired Morgan Nicholls to help with additional instrumentation on most of the songs, cutting the need for more backing tracks, while also making the songs performed live sound a lot closer to their studio versions.īecause backing tracks are in a set tempo, the band have to keep time with them. For the Origin of Symmetry era and (especially) the Absolution era, the band had to rely solely on backing tracks for additional instrumentation. The tracks are usually played through an off-stage computer, together with a click-track. This includes, for example, the orchestral strings in songs like Butterflies & Hurricanes and Unsustainable, the synthesizer arpeggios in Bliss and Starlight, the 'I Want It Now' backing vocals in ' Hysteria' and the speech in Psycho. A 'backing track' is a recorded track that the band play along to, in order to add extra layers to their music, which cannot be played by only three people. Muse make increasing use of backing tracks when performing live. 6.5 Cardboard boxes with an aluminium chairīacking tracks and click tracks Backing tracks.

1.3 Running backing and click tracks live.

Starlight muse stems separate drums