Two years ago, a catchy little pop ditty titled “All About That Bass’ hit the Internet
and radio waves. Although some might have assumed a quick, one-hit-wonder-
fuelled-by-YouTube ride for writer and singer Meghan Trainor, the video for that
song has amassed a staggering 1.6 billion YouTube views and Trainor is now one of
the most successful—and influential—women in the music business with six top 15
Billboard Hot 100 hits and a 2016 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Monitor mix
engineer Tony Luna has been with her since her first tour in 2015, and with the
recent addition of FOH engineer Mike Fanuele, the two are both riding faders on a
pair of DiGiCo SD10 desks.
Pulling on a background that started in the recording studio, Fanuele approaches a
mix in a way that might confound some live engineers with most outputs feeding
more than one group. “Drums are a good example,’ he says. “For instance, the
snare and kick each have two mics. But those mics feed a snare group and a kick
group, and the actual inputs do not live on the top layer of the SD10. And each of
those groups becomes part of a larger drum group.’
Even approaching the desk as a new platform did not put Fanuele behind and he
reports a very little learning curve. “I was out last year with a different desk that
had a very high learning curve,’ he says. “But having Tony and Nathan McBee from
Clair to give me a quick overview, within two hours I had a solid 54-input mix that
looked pretty much like it does today.’
Both engineers are using the SD10s paired with a Waves Extreme server and
Mercury bundle package. Luna also uses a MacBook Pro running Waves Tracks for
virtual playback. The 54 inputs (full band with a horn section) go through Dolby
processing, Lab.gruppen amps and Clair’s i3 rig.
Even with that full Waves package, neither engineer is using a lot of plug-ins. For
example, Fanuele uses a lot of compressor channels, but most of it is DiGiCo’s on-
board processing. “The drums are actually more layered than that,’ he describes.
“There is a snare group that is treated with just EQ and maybe 2dB of compression.
Then the same two mics feed a “snare compressed’ group, and the sum of those two
groups feeds an overall snare control group. But I’m only using plug-ins—in terms
of inputs—on Meghan’s vocal. Everything else—all EQ and compression on inputs—is
on the SD10.’
Luna, whose diverse client list includes everyone from Justin Bieber and Alicia
Keyes to Five Finger Death Punch and Aerosmith, takes a more straightforward
approach. “I’m not even pushing faders,’ he notes. “My SD10 is so dialled in that I
use two things: the Next button and the fader for the crowd mics. I hit the Next
button per scene, rail the crowd mics, Meghan smiles and I know we’re good.’
