Joan Baez spent most of 2018 on her “Fare Thee Well” tour which now stretches into 2019 with a three-piece band and a new batch of Heil Sound PR35 microphones for vocals. The current leg of the tour kicked off in Europe after rehearsals in Barcelona and winds through North America until returning to Europe at the end of the summer.
No stranger to Heil Sound mics, the relationship between Baez and Heil began in 2008. Company founder, Bob Heil, remembers it well, “Joan happened to sing into our PR30, which isn’t a handheld mic, at a rehearsal and loved the sound and asked if a handheld version of it was available. Weeks later I came up with a design for the PR35. I credit Joan with giving me that spark of an idea that turned into one of the most successful microphones that Heil Sound makes.”
Jared Herman is mixing both FOH and “partial” monitors for the touring group which consists of, in addition to Joan, Dirk Powell (piano, bass guitar), Grace Stumberg (vocals) and Gabriel Harris (percussion). Herman controls monitors from FOH on a Digico SD12 for Joan, Grace and Dirk, while Gabriel Harris has his own Digico SD 11 located on stage so that he can control his mix. Veteran sound mixer, Derek Williams will be at the helm beginning in April.
Herman has been very impressed with the Heil Sound PR35s saying, “I find that the PR35 gives me not only the full body of Joan’s lower vocal register but also the sparkling top end air that I find lacking in other live vocal mics. I also found them to have an extremely warm analogue sounding quality across all the singers which are nice as I’m working mostly in the digital realm at FOH”.
