Buffalo, NY (September 18, 2023)—All through the Seventies, Emerson, Lake and Palmer wasn’t merely one of many greatest bands in Prog Rock—it was one of many greatest bands on this planet, interval. Shaped in 1970 as one of many first Supergroups, ELP went on to promote greater than 50 million information, promote out stadiums all over the world and construct a fame for staggering, virtuoso musicianship earlier than disbanding in 1979. Whereas the trio reunited quite a few occasions through the years, these alternatives got here to an finish in 2016 when each Keith Emerson (keyboards) and Greg Lake (vocals, bass, guitar) died solely months aside. Now drummer Carl Palmer is carrying on the band’s legacy with a brand new tour—Welcome Again My Associates: The Return of Emerson Lake & Palmer—that makes use of a savvy mixture of multimedia and stay efficiency to current the group’s best-known works in a live performance setting as soon as once more.
Conceived by Palmer and staged with the total help of his ELP bandmates’ estates, every present finds the drummer performing with guitarist Paul Bielatowicz and bassist Simon Fitzpatrick— and each Emerson and Lake by way of live performance footage offered on video partitions above the stay band. Greater than half the night options the stay musicians locking in with performances culled from an ELP live performance filmed at London’s Royal Albert Corridor in October, 1992. Captured on the time with a full seven-camera shoot and a 24-channel multitrack recording, that efficiency from greater than 30 years in the past is now the bedrock that the present tour’s manufacturing is constructed upon.
Serving to put Palmer’s previous bandmates again on stage with him nightly is veteran engineer Steve Supparits of Resurrection Studios (Grand Island, New York). Supparits brings his personal virtuosity to the proceedings as he concurrently mixes front-of-house, handles displays for the three stay musicians, and runs switchers for 2 of the manufacturing’s three video partitions. All that’s completed in a compact FOH place that facilities round a Behringer Wing 48-channel digital mixer, a laptop computer working Steinberg Nuendo, and a pair of Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Excessive ISO video switchers.
“Carl goals up the concepts, after which it’s my job to determine the right way to make them work technically,” laughed Supparits. Step one was to take the 1992 live performance materials aside and produce it as much as fashionable expectations. “We had the unique footage, but it surely was transferred from VHS,” he defined. “We did a digital switch, took the timecode off the footage after which cleaned it up—and now it seems fantastic; a variety of it seems like HD.”
The 1992 live performance had all three members of ELP play throughout the stage with Palmer on stage left, so there have been many cases the place the footage featured solely Lake at heart stage and Emerson at stage proper, whether or not in closeups or two-shots. At present, the Emerson and Lake materials seems on the left and proper video partitions, whereas a middle wall above Palmer’s drumkit shows the stay band, captured by two stationary cameras, two further cameras run by an operator and a robotic digital camera managed by the tour’s video director, who concurrently runs that wall’s switcher all through the present.
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Supparits opted to run the left and proper video partitions to maintain the whole lot so as, tech-wise. “I selected Steinberg Nuendo because the playback software program as a result of it processes video in addition to audio,” he defined. “I’m utilizing the VidPlayVST plug-in—a VST video participant that may do 1080P off video and run identical to an instrument plug-in on a digital workstation, so it doesn’t bathroom down the processor or lock up the pc. I truly run two cases of that on a variety of songs, like ‘Fortunate Man’—I’ve two movies working concurrently by Nuendo which can be synched up with the 24-track audio, so the video goes by my two switchers to the left and proper partitions. All through, you see Keith Emerson on one wall and Greg Lake on the opposite wall—after which I simply combine it stay as in the event that they’re on stage.”
It’s a true stay combine, too, as all the unique performances had been recorded dry with out results: “I’ve 12 channels of Keith’s keyboards, two channels of bass, two channels of Greg’s guitars, and there’s particular person vocals, so I can carry up Greg’s vocal in a venue after which compress it and use the reverb that fits finest for the home. I combine all of it with the band and clearly Carl performs stay.”
In all, Supparits oversees 54 inputs, with 24 from the video tracks and 30 inputs from the stage—16 of that are from Palmer’s intensive drumkit—plus 10 channels of stereo results as wanted. Palmer’s equipment is captured with Sennheiser e 604s used above and beneath the 2 snares, in addition to on every of the gongs. In the meantime, Audix MicroDs are on all of the toms, whereas the corporate’s condensers may be discovered on the overheads, hi-hats and journey cymbal, and every kick drum will get a single D6. “I’ve by no means been a type of guys that wants two mics on each kick,” stated Supparits. “These days with subs on a separate feed, I discover it a lot simpler simply to dial your bass drum into the highest a part of the P.A. for the clicking you need, add it to the subs within the venue for the punch, and away you go along with one mic.”
The guitar is picked up with a Sennheiser e 609 hung off the cupboard, and the identical goes for the bass, the outcomes of that are blended with the bass DI. “Each guys play a variety of synthesizer elements to emulate what Keith Emerson did, so there’s a bass synthesizer performed by pedals,” stated Supparits, “so there’s a bass synthesizer performed by pedals, whereas the guitar participant goes by a laptop computer, so he can create any synthesizer sound whereas he’s enjoying his guitar, and that’s a stereo direct. Together with these, the bass participant has a 10-string Chapman Stick that could be a fantastic sound, so now we have fairly quite a lot of sound to work with.”
All these sounds culminate in an ELP live performance expertise that, throughout the three musicians on stage and eight crew members in tow, is offered with sincerity and dedication—and the followers sense that, evening after evening. “Carl’s very pushed so far as desirous to placed on a extremely good present and provides the viewers not solely visuals, however the sounds that they’re anticipating to listen to,” stated Supparits. “On the way in which out, half the individuals come over crying, simply thanking us for doing this and saying how fantastic it was to see the blokes once more.” With a yr’s value of reveals throughout the U.S., Japan and Europe already lined up, additional alternatives to make that connection are in retailer.
