Billie Eilish’s FOH Engineer, Drew Thornton (Podcast Episode 6)

I heard Drew's mix at Music Midtown 2023. It was perfection. I knew the issues he had with Billie's vocal, and she sounded amazing. As a live engineer since 1977 and touring FOH in the 80's for everyone from The O'Jays to Beatlemania to Guns 'N Roses, it was the best mix I've ever heard, and with all you had to deal with. Kudos Drew. Great interview Joe. Learned a lot.

I really wish all the young singers that comes to my stage wishing and trying to hard to sound like Billie could understand the level of not only technique and control, but also the sheer amount of technical work involved on the FOH side to make vocals as breathy and quiet as those come alive on stage. Also, that they will have to deal with the heartbreak that it's impossible to sound like this starting to play live. Billie knows how to project very very well and her breath control is beyond belief, but it's not gonna work without the insane compression, EQ, verb work AND the tracks. There are quite a few young singers who need to understand that you cannot simply replicate this live even if you do know how to sing really well.

24:08 As a live sound engineer, the greatest favor you can do yourself is to buy your own console. Even if it's just a used Presonus StudioLive rack, Yamaha TF rack or Behringer x32 rack, the ability to try any idea you come up with at any time of day or night is priceless. Record the live shows you work on to a DAW whenever you can (with permission, of course), so you always have a library of live concerts to rework on your own console at home. You will quickly find yourself moving ahead of other engineers that don't do anything / practice anything until the next time they are standing in front of a venue console.

Thank you for this! It’s really helpful to get an inside look on professional live sound. As a solo gigging musician, with the occasional band gig, it’s mind blowing to know the precision you guys are performing and the fact that what y’all are doing during the show is a performance in of itself🤯

Great interview , Both parties bring their insights into doing live sound and it is greatly appreciated ! 😊

Great convo gentlement. Nice to see some familar faces talking about what we love on our Youtube feed.

Great video guys! Thank you

Great interview, thanks for sharing!

Awesome podcast/interview !!! Thank you 🎉

This was awesome! Would love to see a walk through his show file with a virtual playback to really get a grasp of what he is doing

great guy, great interview

Just saw this and the point about the LR buss processing, as opposed to backing up to the source or groups for broadcast, is soo relevant now, especially in the ATMOS broadcast world. Buss processing doesn't do anything in the bed and object world. ie Doesn't do anything with objects tracks and only messes the balance with them when used on the bed buss. Great interview guys. And massive respect to Drew's Billie mixes, which sound amazing.... now I know why. Great attention to every detail. Oh and "Mix like a Brit..." love it.. Always said that the British SE's were doing the biggest cleanest mixes in the live world through the 80's 90's..... Super big and clean.

Great chat.

So interesting

When you say Billie didn’t like the mix on BBC live lounge, does that include her covers from way back? Like “The end of the world” and “you don’t get me high any more”? Or do you mean the bbc live coverage of festivals?

Was surprised they run it on the C1500, but very capable console for sure!

I am curious to know if sound engineers get regular hearing tests?

This is the video where he described his (now old/outdated) "Main / LR Bus Processing". EP1 - Main / LR Bus Processing (A Sum Of Two Busses) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPD0jlnnUfM

How do live engineers like Drew protect their hearing in big stadium shows when, like he said, even the crowd is clocked at 118dB. Do they use attenuators or IEMs or something?

Is Drew still a FOH for Billie?