Hello, my name is German Tarazona, I'm a monitor engineer.
On this tour I handle the monitors for J Balvin.
Welcome to the La Familia Tour,
J's headlining tour of the Unites States.
We're working with two Profile consoles.
For this tour I have a setup on stage
of five musicians plus J Balvin.
I use a total of 12 mixes
because we add mixes for our technicians and production managers,
as we have inserts all over the stage,
to communicate with the FOH and monitor engineers.
We use wireless systems for the entire stage.
We also use side fills for the dancers,
in which we load a mix
with the reggaetón tracks
so they can dance on beat.
We use, from left to right: drums, bass,
our director and our DJ in the middle of the stage,
keyboards, and, finally, guitars,
and J Balvin as the lead vocalist.
For me, one of the advantages of using Waves
is being able to take some of J's studio sound to the stage,
and to his own ears.
The textures of J's music are full of tracks,
and, in addition, we have a band on the stage.
The band needs a lot of dynamism,
and we have to make a mix, a blend that is...
warm to the ears, for the entire band and for J,
because the most important thing, in this case,
is not to let the textures fade away,
so that he feels the roots of his music in his ears.
J likes to keep an eye on what he's hearing,
the nuances, the sequences,
the live instrumentation, on what each musician is doing.
The musicians interact a lot with him during the show,
so it's very important to get a very structured fusion
between the instruments and our tracks on the live shows.
There are many opinions
about whether to use or not to use plugins in the monitors.
I'm a plugin fan,
I think these are wonderful tools to mix with.
They can add texture and enhance your mix,
but they can also ruin it if you don't use them properly.
It's a matter of exploring
and learning to use them in the right way.
I have certain plugins that are...
they are always key.
I like using the C6 a lot.
It's a plugin that provides
Super-fast compression and equalization.
For the vocals in general, the CLA-76
provides many colors that I like to highlight on the vocals.
Waves' WNS Noise Suppressor is absolutely incredible.
In this tour in particular we are not using a runway,
but J usually uses a runway on his shows,
and generally the PA affects his voice a lot,
when he passes by the PA.
So with the WNS I manage to clean up
some of the areas that disturb the audio when he walks
on the runway or the stage and sometimes the side fills.
Another plugin I like to use is the L3.
It gives character to the mix.
I like it when the musicians feel
pressure in their in-ears, how they feel like they're playing
in front of the PA.
I have very responsible, very good musicians.
I like making their mixes because they like to hear the entire band,
so we have a fast dynamic all the time.
In all my drums channels I have the SSL.
It's an amazing plugin.
I have a gate, I have an expander,
I have compression, a hi-pass filter, a low-pass filter,
I have cue, everything you need on a channel strip.
I like the color it brings to the percussion,
it's a really nice color.
Especially for the in-ears,
you have to be very careful not to make loud mixes,
because our shows are an hour and a half, two hours long,
and an in-ear can be a double-edged sword for a musician.
The C4.
The C4 is also a very good tool for me,
given that I have live tracks and a live band,
because I can use it to create that mix between the two,
I can compress certain types of frequencies,
which often clash with the band and the [playback] sequences
This way, each musician can hear his instrument in his in-ears,
which is very important, because each musician can feel what he's playing.
The musicians don't have to strain themselves and lose their dynamics,
they can play soft or hard,
and I always make sure that the playback
is slightly...
slightly below their [individual] instrument,
but not so far below
that the basic elements of the music lose their presence.
For the keyboards I use the S1 Stereo Imager.
This plugin is...
it's amazing, because sometimes I play
with the stereo image of the keyboards depending on the snapshot I'm in.
My keyboard player is a musician
who likes to experiment a lot with his sound,
and make his sound more open or closed,
depending on what he wants to do, which I think is incredible.
And I recommend this one for specific things.
It's very good if you want to open up a sound mix,
but what we do with it,
in this case, is play with the stereo image
of one of the keyboards during the show,
in some moments when it's worth doing it.
The Renaissance Bass is a very good plugin too. It gives a lot of character,
and you can play with the frequency you need.
On my outputs,
I like to use the L3 a little bit,
the Multimaximizer.
I use it on all my outputs.
I think it gives a bit of character to all my in-ears in the final mix.
I can also keep a bit of their dynamic
and equalize a little bit the final mix
of each musician, just the way they like it.
Maybe the drummer likes to feel that his drums have a lot of attack,
so he lets me play with the compression,
to make sure that his dynamic during the show is very steady,
and he never loses the mix he likes.
During the entire show I use...
I use the Renaissance Bass for the reverberation.
It's a fantastic plugin. It sounds very good,
It has all these different options
for the drums, the guitars,
the background vocals.
We're doing this tour with a guest artist,
Becky G, who is very talented.
With her, I use completely different settings than usual.
because she has a very warm voice, she's very young.
I use the Renaissance Channel.
It's a very good equalizer, very transparent.
With her I also use the C1,
and the WNS, which I think is very helpful with live vocals.
Let me show you the chains I use
for my lead vocals.
First I use the C6, which is a great plugin.
Then I go to the CLA-76.
The color this plugin gives me is incredible.
It gives character to the voice, it's in your face, just as I like it.
It helps me find the perfect space for the vocals in the mix,
without having the mix lose musical presence,
because many times, the in-ear mix
is somebody else's mix, not the mix you particularly like,
but it allows the singer
to find a balance between the band and his own voice.
That's important, and that plugin does it very well.
Then we have the WNS,
as the final plugin.
I use it because it helps me clean up the extra sounds on the stage,
like the cymbals, a little bit of the side fills.
And when we have a runway and he walks on it
it cleans up the microphone a lot,
so whether he's singing or not, the microphone has the same color,
and he won't be hearing the background noises sneaking in,
which we send separately to his in-ears.
And the last plugin I use, but only on a few songs,
is the GTR Amps,
which generates some distortion, which he likes from his album.
With this plugin, we go in and out a few times during the mix,
but only for a few arrangements that he likes from his album.
Now let's see the H-Delay.
We use it to give some depth to his mix.
And the reverb we use is the Renaissance Reverb.
It sounds great too, and it has worked very well for him.
If you ask me which plugin helps me the most,
it would be... It's difficult, because I have many,
but the C4 is an essential tool for me at the moment,
to be able to balance my tracks and my live band. It helps me a lot.
The C6 too.
But I think that at this moment, it's the C4,
which I have right here.
An instrument that I like a lot is definitely the drum set.
For me, the drums are...
In this music, the beat is the most important thing,
so for my drums I use...
the SSL Channel for the kick.
I like the color it gives, I can equalize very fast,
I can see what's happening with my kick.
I use the Renaissance Vox as a gate for him.
It's a little bit more aggressive, just like I need it in this case.
And I use the LoAir at the end of the chain.
I like how it adds some air to the in-ears.
It doesn't just make the kick strong,
it also allows the musician to feel that his kick sounds balanced,
and I think it makes the kick sound good in the in-ears.
For the snare drum, I use Trans-X.
It sounds incredible.
The SSL. And the PuigChild 660.
It sounds pretty good, the attack is incredible too.
I can play with it during the show,
because the dynamics change for some songs,
so I think it works pretty great.
For the side snare I use the SSL
and the CLA-3A.
This plugin and this setup are different.
We use this snare mostly as a sound effect.
Sometimes we also use triggers,
so this plugin changes depending on the song,
and it allows me to choose the color I need.
Let's check out the plugins,
how they run during the show.
Let's listen to the bass and the drums together
with the plugins running.
Let's listen to the drums with the playback and the bass,
and we'll see how it builds up with our plugins in the mix.
For the guitars I use the C6.
It helps me to control the dynamic.
It also helps me a lot
to control the areas where the guitars may clash with the vocals,
like the high-mid area.
Let's listen to the guitar a bit.
And this is how everything works together.
That's it.
My keyboard setup is big,
I use a Kronos, a Virus, a Motif and a Novation.
That's the musician's setup, he works with MIDI
and changes things around constantly for each song.
I follow him on my snapshots to see what he...
What he needs for each song too.
I use a C4 for all the keyboards, it helps me maintain the dynamic,
and to make the specific compression I need for each song.
Let's listen to this with the entire mix.
That's the final mix with the keyboards.
As a monitor engineer,
the most important thing you can do is...
listen to your musicians, to your singer,
know what they're asking for,
and make their mixes fun.
You can make the stage
a heaven or a hell for them.
So the most important thing is to work hand-in-hand with them,
to have a good relationship with your musicians, with your singer,
so they are able to work well and for a long time.
I've been working with my band and J for about...
It'll be almost two years.
And we've had great stability on the monitors.
They have complete trust in my mixing standards,
because I've taken the time to know them one by one,
and to know how they want their mixes,
so with just one look I know what they need during the show.
So the most important thing is to have a good relationship with the musicians.
When it comes to the monitors, it's crucial.
Waves has allowed sound engineers
to bring studio experience to the tour,
and I think that's the most important thing Waves has done,
with its progress, its software, its plugins, its hardware emulations.
It allows us to get closer to that great sound every day.
In some cases we can even call the producer of the album
and tell him: "What plugins are you using for the lead singer's chain?
I'd like to use that for the live show."
And he can send you the same presets he used at the studio
for your console, for the show.
So I think that's one of the great benefits
Waves has given us on tour.
For more infomation >> The Space Between Us
For more infomation >> Александр РОЗЕНБАУМ — Я ВИЖУ СВЕТ (Альбом 2005) - Duration: 1:12:11. 
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