Soundcheck: Orba Squara at the Knitting Factory
WILLIAMSBURG, BROOKLYN: If you’re in the mood for a drink or three, you could do a lot worse than the spacious bar at the front of the Knitting Factory’s new Williamsburg locale. On a recent Saturday night, it was the perfect place to kick back with a rum & coke and meet the ultimate oddball – a Detroit Lions fan from Oklahoma.
But this is SonicScoop, and you know that we were really on hand for the music. The Knitting Factory opened their doors extra early for us so we could listen in on the real action for the FOH folks: soundcheck. If the show’s going to go great, it’s got to start right here, right now.
We had the privilege of looking over the shoulder of Melanie Renecker, Head of Sound/Production Manager for the Knitting Factory as she got the mics and faders in place for NYC’s Orba Squara. A three-piece band headed by Manhattanite Mitch Davis, Orba Squara was not a run-of-the-mill set for Renecker to manage, presenting her with an array of toy pianos, acoustic guitars, vocals, glockenspiel and hand/foot percussion – a far cry from your typical six strings, bass and drums array.
Orba Squara test drives the Knitting Factory lights.
Although not everyone in the audience was going to recognize the name Orba Squara, they probably recognized the song “Perfect Timing” off of their 2007 album sunshyness, which happened to be featured in the first-ever international iPhone TV campaign (Frito Lay, Expedia, Saturn, Goodyear and Sun Chips all followed Apple’s licensing lead on sunshyness, as well). With the band’s brand new album, The Trouble with Flying, hot off the presses, stakes is high for a tight mix tonight.
MELANIE’S AT FOH:
Behind every awesome venue is an awesome Front-of-House engineer, right? Renecker was clearly in charge during soundcheck.
“I’ve been at the Knitting Factory since 2004, when they were still at the TriBeCa location. I went to the Art Institute of Seattle, and after graduating I was primarily interested in recording studios. I moved to NYC, figuring that was a good place to start.
“Through some friends, I got going at the Knitting Factory in a very small, 100-capacity room. After working at studios and other random internships, I felt that live sound was more up my alley. I like the social aspects of it, and there’s something very gratifying about starting the show, finishing it and breaking it down.”
GETTING SET FOR ORBA SQUARA:
Orba Squara is performing in three-piece mode tonight – Davis along with his onstage bandmates Zè Luis and Jason Hart — and its gentle, melodic approach is a highly advanced form of Americana. This is expert, original songwriting that puts musicality far ahead of hype in each short, perfectly-crafted story.
“I was fortunate enough to have mixed them before, during CMJ. Generally speaking with these acoustic-type shows, there are no direct boxes – it’s all ambient mics. The gain structure is very important during the soundcheck: You want to anticipate that the room is going to be full and you’ll have to act accordingly, without causing feedback. I had ambient mics and instrument mics set up for everything, and basically inserted a plug-in compressor on everything, in case I needed a little extra compression.
Orba Squara stage right
“With the toy pianos, depending on how hard or soft they’re playing, you have to decide how loud those are supposed to be to really stand out, and figure out where those should be placed. They shouldn’t be above the acoustic guitars, and shouldn’t be above the vocals. None of the keyboards had DI’s, they were all miked. Since there are no amps with toy pianos, you have to figure out where the sound is coming from. In the mini upright, for example, there’s a little cavern in the back. In my experience you stick the mic up in that cavern so it doesn’t feed back, and you get the most sound out of it. I think the only electric instrument onstage was the mini pump organ Farfisa – he had a volume control for that (actually a lighting dimmer switch) that the keyboardist kept at a fairly static level.
“For the acoustic guitar, I used Audix i5’s, and the Audix i5 on a couple of toy pianos. I used some Shure SM-57’s on the toy pianos, one Shure KSM 141, and the vocal was a Shure SM-58.”
BEHIND THE BOARD:
The command center of the Knitting Factory is an Avid Digidesign VENUE SC48 digital console, with 36 available channel inputs. Primary outboard includes a Klark-Teknik DN360 EQ, plus dual T.C. Electronic M-Ones, and a T.C. Electronic D-Two.
“For this particular show, the VENUE SC48 console works very well, because the two bands were very different from one another (Orba Squara opened up for Jad Fair & Lumber Bob). I was able to create snapshots and different scenes for each band, and the ability to add compression to a number of tracks at the same time is important. The previous console at the previous club maybe had six (analog) compressors, so there was a lot of pre-planning for, ‘What are we going to use? I’d like to use compression on this instrument, but we really need it on the vocal.’ That’s a plus to using the VENUE SC48, and another factor for choosing the VENUE SC48 was its very small, compact footprint.
Melanie Renecker is FOCUSED.
“I do like working on the console. I think the layout is very intuitive, and once you’re familiar with the software, you can really use it like an analog console without doing too much scrolling and tabbing through banks. You have to do that to get to different pages and sectors, but I don’t feel like it takes any more time than with an analog console.”
TUNING THE ROOM:
Wider than it is deep, the stylish new Knitting Factory live room is a comfortable place for 200 people or so to spread out and experience a show. Renecker’s experience should ensure a hospitable environment for the ears as well as the other senses.
“It’s a work in progress. This room in general can be a little bright, and the low end can really swell in here, so you have to monitor that. Our Meyer arrays are hung flanking the stage, and you lose the middle. You have to have some front fills because the room is wide – our stage is 24’ wide – otherwise vocals or another acoustic instrument in a rock show might get lost.
“Anywhere you stand in the room, you get pretty even coverage. It’s not a particularly dead room, but it’s not particularly live. It’s just right. Because it’s wide and shallow, however, it’s very easy for bands to overplay the space. They see a big stage, a fairly large-looking room, and the result is there’s a lot of stage volume management that needs to be done. We have a lot of fairly reflective surfaces for the sound to bounce around, which helps and hurts us, depending on the show.
All hail stage left!
“I think our system is pretty good, and I’ve enjoyed the opportunities to mix very quiet, mellow shows, and insanely loud shows – everything from solo acts to 20-piece marching bands on stage. We’re able to do a lot more with this stage than we were every able to do in the other club, just because of the size of the stage and the layout. We can experiment a little more, and bands can put on a better live show because they’re not standing on top of each other.”
THEY NAILED IT IN SOUNDCHECK (AND THE GIG):
So, with dozens of local and national acts coming through the Knitting Factory on a weekly basis, how does Renecker know if she got The Sound in soundcheck?
“Generally, because I don’t know what the band is supposed to sound like, I have to guess from soundcheck what I think their style is, if they don’t tell me directly. So for something like Orba Squara, my philosophy is, ‘What would their record sound like to me? Should these toy pianos and xylophones be ambient, or more present?’ And this was a very quiet show: if 25 or 50 more people come into the room, can I push the system enough to maintain that mix? The more bodies get into the room, the more challenging the mixing gets.”
Coming back for Orba Squara’s pleasantly populated live set 90 minutes later, SonicScoop declares: They did it right in soundcheck. The proof is that we didn’t even think about the live mix for half the show, since Renecker’s mix was so crystal clear and transparent – and the musicians apparently so comfortable with their monitor situation – that the system seemed to simply disappear. All that was left was Davis, his bandmates, some crystalline acoustic instruments, and a headful of unforgettable hooks. – David Weiss