Radiohead's sound crew show Mix their analogue tour rig

Mix magazine's All Access page caught Radiohead's sound crew at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California, as the band and Supergrass, their support, got ready for the show on 23 September.

Both of the tour's desks are analogue, and Graham Lees, who mixes the band's monitors, gives the reason. It's an analog desk, and they're an analog band¹

Lees works on a Midas Heritage 3000 expanded to 56 inputs, and cues in three extra keyboard positions at different points in the set. Thom Yorke, Phil Selway and Ed O'Brien wear in-ear monitors but keep their wedges as well. They actually use the in-ears for what they don't want to hear.¹ Jonny and Colin Greenwood use only wedges, run quietly.

Jim Warren, the band's front-of-house engineer for years, mixes the sets of nearly 25 songs on a 56-channel Soundcraft Series Five and keeps outboard gear to a minimum, with a vocoder and a Line 6 POD Pro for bending the vocals. Florent Bernard designed the PA, 40 L'Acoustics V-DOSC boxes, and flies most of the subwoofers so the front rows are not flattened by bass.

Asked what working with Radiohead is like, Bernard says every day is different. Warren says every day is the same.