In this interview by Midas, we spoke with Eddie Mapp (FOH) and Jerrell Evans (MONS) for Pantera. Eddie and Jerrell cover topics including their tour set-up, using the Midas HD96 and their indiviual career highlights.
Pantera is an American heavy metal band, formed in Arlington, Texas in 1981. They are credited with developing and popularizing the subgenre of groove metal in the 1990s, combining the aggression of thrash metal with groove-oriented riffs and soulful vocals.
Interview with Eddie Mapp & Jerrell Evans Audio Engineers Pantera
Video text:
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[Music] having people say thank you just for the experience and they’re not even saying like we love the kick drum or this or whatever blah blah blah but just to to paint this picture and have somebody go wow I really enjoyed that my name is Eddie map and I’m front of house for panta we are currently in hurg Germany my name is Gerald Evans I’m the monitor engineer for panta and it’s been uh a really cool Whirlwind my first run with HT uh was with Evan Essence uh last summer I had Jim rose with RPM Dynamics send down a package for that um and took that out till mid September uh at which point we started um panta rehearsals and I had
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Jim put together a front house and monitor package Shi that down we jump straight in uh to that and most recently I did a festival with corn and that was uh a festival in Las Vegas with hd96 and also suppli by RPM so I’m trying to get all the inventory out there sonically it’s way better than others on the Metallica we are adding a second drum kit which will have another rack underneath that drum drum kit that’ll have two more DL 231s in it and then we’ll have one amplifier in there that will drive the drum sub and the wedge and the Shaker for the drum throne basically everything on stage lands at 3 231s and then travels via 9680 fiber to the monitor desk and there it’s converted through a80s to front housee and monitors for redundant fiber lines uh we have mdty cards installed in all the desks
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so we can do virtual uh with an MGB in monitors and front of house so we record through U wave sound grid I’m recording to tracks live and to Protools so we have a redundant backup and then we can do virtual sound check through the entire system which really helps being able to listen through the PA as well as monitors at the same time out of that we will be going into 49650 also loaded with mdty cards to give us the 128 Channel record that we’ll need for the Metallica shows so the audio requirements so when we started off with the rehearsals we started off small and basically it was just in ears and just a couple of little speakers around so that they could hear uh some of the songs and go over songs and then as we started putting all of this together last November we added some side fills to it and just a couple of wedges on stage and then everybody is on in ears and so the wedges in the s FS
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were just kind of just a little bit of a feel so it’s not like it was in the past where it was all wedges and it was extremely loud on stage so now it’s a it’s more of a contained thing for the panta setup we actually brought the desk upstairs in the control room and kind of rebuilt the control room around the hd96 which once again it was so great to have virtual soundcheck have the band just starting this getting this off the ground for the first time and being able to come up in a nice controlled environment listen back and go wow that’s us I have the the Midas hd96 for my console surface we have three currently DL 231s and I have a 152 for all my imem all the outputs go to my iems so I do use uh some of the effects inside I use uh the graphic eqs I use on the side fills I am using a primary source enhancer that is built into the unit for uh a couple of vocals that are
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open all the time on stage that are not being used all the time but only as backups and I have a couple of reverbs that I’m using on drums and on some of the vocals I do use a transient plugin that is on the unit for the drums which is really nice it kind of makes all the drums stand out a little bit normally shooting for consistency um between the rooms or the venues whatever obstacles that entails yeah just regarding whatever PA setup and especially dealing with different Pas every day yeah we’re kind of at the mercy of whatever however creative we can get with what’s given to us frequency coordination is the most difficult thing when we’re doing the festivals that is the most difficult some of the festivals have a frequency coordinator so they will give you frequencies and tell you what time you can turn your frequencies on some of the festivals we’ve done it’s just a free-for-all and you’ve got to stay with it all day long and and just keep going
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through it but as the bands dwindle down and you’re the headliner those frequencies open up and you can start allocating stuff to your units maintaining your health on the road you know limiting your exposure to you know other loud sounds finding that balance on a day-to-day basis if if you’re only doing festivals maybe it’s a loud environment everywhere so maybe trying to find a way to get away for a little while to rest your ear what I’ve noticed with the Midas when you you start off with a clean slate you have all the input channels you just plow through them with the button it just goes through all the channels that are there the pop groups making things just hitting a button and having everything pop up you know on on your fader Banks and the navigation on it and it’s taken me a little bit to to understand the whole navigation on this Midas console but it’s I can put everything where I want it and push a button be there and it’s great I mean the navigation is
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incredible I think it’s the weight all I’ve got is my uh the hd96 and my smart rig for for PA tuning yeah and for system alignment other than that everything’s internal in the desk for these shows it’s been PA dour so we kind of get what we get on a day-to-day basis and once again having the consistency of the desk along with the power to tune the system that’s what gives us better shot at fighting the elements every day I like to watch I our watch the audience and when the audience are totally into it for me like the ’90s when we did all the metal fests when everybody’s just crowd surfing those those are the ones that stand out a lot I started off playing drums when I was eight and uh been played guitar when I was 10 played in little local bands kind of became the default sound guy as needed and then I went to a recording School the conservatory recording Arts and Science and in Tempe Arizona
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graduated from there moved back to Louisiana working in small Studios and clubs till I eventually got picked up on a van and trailer tour of the US and kind of never looked back I went to school for electronics studying Electronics ended up working for a musical Distribution Company in the mid to late 80s but as I was going College I eventually got on the workbench and was repairing these things and at the same time I always mixing bands the monitor position is a very hot seat but just listen to the artist what they’re looking for in their mix and help them out as much as you can work with them try try to help them out cuz sometimes they don’t have the tools to make things sound better in their in their in ears or in their wedges I mean cuz sometimes you’re mixing some very loud wedges and you know it can be difficult but you know stick with it love what you do and be passionate about it I just want to say thank you so much
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to Midas and the whole team Pete Max Chase Jim and everybody for all the support and you know the list can go on but thanks so much for making all this happen.
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Red Hot Chili Peppers – Dave Rat FOH Engineer