Jonny Williams on tour with Sir Rod Stewart at the Sportpaleis, Antwerp, June 2024
We recently heard that a CEDAR DNS 8D was being used on Sir Rod Stewart's nine-week European tour and couldn't miss the opportunity to talk to Jonny Williams, his FOH sound engineer, about its use for live vocals on one of the largest tours of the year.
During his career, Jonny has often had to overcome the challenges of producing clean vocals in difficult environments and, as a FOH engineer working with touring bands, he needed a way to ensure that his clients sounded their best. "We play in all sorts of venues, many of them quite cavernous with a lot of sound bouncing around. I was looking for a way to clean up the vocals so they could sit on top of the mix and be present no matter what type of environment we were in. I have eight vocalists scattered around the stage and a lot of spill to eradicate. What's more, they wander around the stage so the background is constantly changing, and I was searching for a unit that was able to analyse these changes and eradicate the noise," Jonny explained.
We asked how he had heard about the DNS 8D, and he continued, "I heard about CEDAR's products when a good friend of mine was using them for FOH sound for The 1975. I also found out the DNS 8 Live was being used by Ed Sheeran so, the more I researched, the more I liked the idea of giving it a go. The 8-channel DNS 8D appealed to me, so I took the plunge and asked the audio supplier to purchase one for me."
After receiving a video tutorial from Paul Alexander at CEDAR, he was able to integrate the DNS 8D unit seamlessly into his setup.
"I have much cleaner vocals now and it's also helped with potential feedback risks. Each day I spend a long time with one of the monitor engineers and the systems engineer EQ-ing the system to the vocal mics. I then build the rest of the mix around these. The DNS 8D helps us to keep the PA and the reflections from the room out of the vocal mics."
Today, the DNS 8D sits in his FOH outboard rack and connects to his mixing console via Dante. Jonny explained, "In the beginning, I used the unit in Learn mode and it was doing a good job. I then tried creating a noise floor by getting the unit to Learn for a few seconds at the top of the show, before punching out the Learn function. I found this didn't work so well because, as the vocal mics moved around the stage or when there was talking between songs, the background noise changed. I went back to leaving the unit in Learn mode full time and it still works great. It's actually much easier to use it this way as well."
When asked about any feature he felt deserved special mention, he concluded by saying, "Using a browser to access the DNS 8D's GUI is a great feature! It's so easy to make adjustments and monitor the unit. I have a laptop, set up wirelessly (with an Ethernet backup) that sits next to the console, in my line of sight. I am easily able to take the laptop and make minor tweaks if needed but to be honest, I haven't touched the settings in weeks!"
Learn more about the CEDAR DNS 8D and how it can improve your work.
Jonny's the Managing Director of Production Worx, a production company specialising in providing technical and logistical services to the entertainment industry. With over 20 years experience as a FOH engineer and production manager, he's worked with names such as Sir Rod Stewart, Central Cee, RAYE, Rita Ora, Stormzy, and Liam Payne. In 2014, he founded BoomBocs® and has since gone on to win the Great British Entrepreneur Award.
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