During the Festival's three days, the Mojave Stage hosted performances by 30 acts, including Devo, Grizzly Bear, Imogen Heap, Julian Casablancas, Shooter Jennings and Les Claypool. In other words, rest was not an option for Charbonneau. "When you're mixing live from 10am to 1am for three days, it's a tough gig for the ears," Charbonneau said, "but it's such a great time doing it, especially when you love music and you love what you do."
Not only does the schedule itself pose a challenge, but Charbonneau notes that mixing live music for broadcast leaves little room for error. "With live broadcasts and recording live music, you always have to be on top of everything, because you only have one chance to get it right," he said. "When you work in an environment like that you never know what you're up against, so it's very important to be comfortable with your monitors."
To that end, Charbonneau selected a stereo pair of JBL LSR2328 studio monitors as part of his setup at Coachella, having first used them when recording the Andrea Bocelli and David Foster My Christmas concert at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles, which aired on PBS television last November.
"I couldn't believe how good they sound while being so affordable," Charbonneau said. "I figured Coachella would be the ultimate test for the LSR2300's. It's non-stop operation in a loud environment. "When recording or mixing live in such a challenging environment, you can easily be thrown off by so many elements. Having monitors you know well and that you can rely on sonically, surely is one of the most important things."
(Jim Evans)
