On Tour: FOH Engineer Colin Pink on mixing The World of Hans Zimmer

Miking Up the Epic World of Hans Zimmer with FOH Legend Colin Pink

Journey behind The World of Hans Zimmer with FOH engineer Colin Pink (The BRIT Awards, MTV VMAs) as he takes us through the setup of the legendary show and how microphones from sE Electronics played a crucial role. The challenges of miking up an orchestra demand specific tools to prevent spill, and the directionality and off-axis rejection of sE’s mics help make them the ideal tool.

The challenges of miking up an orchestra

Even with Colin’s extensive and varied background as a FOH engineer, including The BRIT Awards, MTV VMAs, and more, miking up an orchestra presents a very specific set of audio challenges that he had to tackle. “Whether you like it or not, when you’re miking up an orchestra, you’re gonna have 80% spill into everything else. And it’s great when you don’t have to worry about weird EQs happening off-axis,” Colin says. Enter sE Electronics.

Why sE?

“The sE mics are very, very clean and the important bit for more orchestral shows is they have a very, very good off-axis response.” This directionality and clean signal combination made sE the perfect choice for Colin on The World of Hans Zimmer.

Miking Multi-Perc

For Luis Ribeiro‘s multi-perc station, Colin opted for RN17s as overheads primarily. He supplemented with V Kicks and V Beats on the larger drums to get the low frequency information. “What I love about the V Beats and Kicks is they’re really good when you have a dynamic player,” Colin says. “There’s a lot of mics that can pick up drums really well when they’re hit hard. If you’ve got dynamic players and they play gently, I’m getting a lot more detail and dynamics out of the V Beats and Kicks than I would expect.”

Miking the Drum Set

For Lucy Landymore‘s drum set, Colin picked the T1s for overheads. “The transients on them are amazing. You just get a completely effortless, natural top end and you really don’t have to work at controlling them.” He supplemented with sE8s on the hi-hats and V Beats and V Kicks on the toms. “I tend to use the V Kicks on floor toms as opposed to just on the kick. You just get a really nice full, round sound out of them.”

Miking Timpani

Colin miked Aleksandra Suklar on timpani with sE4100s overhead for a warmer, fuller sound. In addition, he used the RNR1s to solve the tricky nature of timpani: you want to be further away to capture their resonance but often can’t afford to on a live stage. “The RNR1s just manage to get the tone and the smoothness of the timps and still have the bite.”

Miking Woodwinds

For a variety of woodwinds played by the masterful Pedro Eustache, Colin used the sE8s. “They just are great on anything because they’re very transparent, very clean, and very fast. They just pick up what you want.”

Thanks to Colin Pink and The World of Hans Zimmer for this incredible rundown.