FoH engineer Philip J Harvey reflects on his journey with Lorde on the road.
In celebration of her fourth album, Virgin, Lorde hit the road with a steadfast crew, into bigger venues, after an intimate tour for Solar Power. Discussing the jump back into arenas, TPi caught up with FOH Engineer, Philip J Harvey, to delve into everything ULTRASOUND WORLD TOUR.
“This is my 12th year with Lorde; I have worked with her throughout her discography – approaching the ULTRASOUND WORLD TOUR with Virgin was particularly interesting and challenging,” Harvey began.
“While the show features a majority of songs from Virgin, there are also numerous hits from her back catalogue interspersed throughout, and they have been reconfigured to fit within the driven style of Ultrasound.”
Harvey’s desk of choice was a Solid State Logic L550 Plus, which controlled an L-Acoustics L-ISA immersive system with L2 for the United States leg of the tour and a K1 and K2 system for the UK and Europe run, which was supplied by Clair Global. “The sound of the console is why I choose SSL,” he said. “Between the fidelity of their SuperAnalogue preamps and internal DSP processing, I just haven’t found an equal.”
Describing the mix for this tour as a “little more raw”, Harvey ran through his setup: “I run a customised FOH rack, which I created and experimented with during COVID-19 to keep my head in music production while the industry was at a standstill,” he explained. “My FOH recording/effects rig for this tour features an M1 Mac Mini at it’s heart with a Metric Halo ULN-8 mkIV and a 2882+DSP fitted with MADI Cards as my I/Os.”
Harvey also employs software-based plugin host, Gig Performer 5, which allows him to use plugins natively. “The best thing about this set up is that I can use any plugin that I desire, which allows me to use the same kit the studio team utilised while producing the album.
For example, the song David features a tremolo effect that really blossoms powerfully at the end; Jim-E Stack let me know which plugin he used and the settings and it worked amazingly well for the live performance,” he explained.
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Note: this is just a part of the interview. For more information see below.
Source: Instagram - Lordeontour
