Mix: Franz Ferdinand

Byline: Steve Jennings

Glasgow, Scotland-based Franz Ferdinand's show reminds one of a little bit of '60s pop infused with '80s new wave, but with a slightly modern feel. Mix spoke with front-of-house engineer Mike Parker about the tour.

"The group [bassist Bob Hardy, guitarist Nick McCarthy, drummer Paul Thomas and vocalist/guitarist Alex Kapranos] has loads of dates in Europe and the UK, two decent-sized U.S. tours and two U.S. promo trips. Next month is Australia, New Zealand and Japan. We are carrying all the microphones and two sets of in-ear monitors. We have a Sennheiser endorsement: Sennheiser 935s for everyone except Alex [pictured], who uses a Sennheiser 840 because he chipped a bit off his tooth in the middle of our last tour, which has made his voice more sibilant. The 840 has slightly less presence than the 935, which helps."

Parker jokingly notes that his console "changes like audio roulette." Stashed in his FOH rack are eight dbx 160A compressors for bass and vocals; four Drawmer DS501 power gates on both kick mics, bottom snare and floor tom; two Lexicon PCM70 for vocal and kit reverbs; a TC Electronic D2 snare delay for "Come on Home"; a Yamaha SPX-990 special reverb for "Tell Her Tonight" and "This Fire"; and one BSS 901 multiband compressor used as a de-esser for Kapranos' vocal, which is in-line with one of the dbx 160As.

"On monitors is engineer Tilde Bruynooghe, who is from Amsterdam. We met her at the Paradiso a while ago and she's great."