Hans Zimmer Live

I don’t know this for a fact but you get the feeling that Hans Zimmer’s giant world tours are a way for the great man himself to have fun and give back to the key performers who have helped define the great soundtracks of our day. Put it this way: Hans Zimmer Live wasn’t put together by an accountant.
The show travels with more than 50 musicians and a number of soloists who make cameo appearances. For example, you can’t perform the theme from The Gladiator without Lisa Gerrard’s evocative vocalisations. And you can’t perform music from The Lion King without Lebo M’s distinctive chants.
Hans self evidently loves it. He’s throwing a party and fans around the world get to sit in.
Colin Pink brings it all together at front of house. Some 260 inputs effectively maxes out his Digico SD7 Quantum, with everything from ancient near east wind instruments, Pro Tools tracks, a full-blown modular synth, to two full drum kits, and everything in between.
AT caught up with Colin and other members of the audio team in Melbourne. I started by asking Colin if a tour like Hans Zimmer Live would have technically even been possible 10 or 15 years ago?
Colin Pink: You’d really have struggled. We’re running 260 inputs, and there are far more outputs than you might expect. With over 50 people on stage, it’s a logistical nightmare – especially for monitors. Maurizio, our monitor engineer, is juggling 48 in-ear mixes, which is bonkers.













AT: So who’s got the tougher job – you or Maurizio?
Colin Pink: Ask him, and he’ll say me. Ask me, and I’ll say him. But honestly, they’re hard in different ways. For me, Hans’ music is so eclectic – cinematic, orchestral, electronic – and it’s all about managing dynamics. I don’t think in terms of loud and quiet – more big and small. There are delicate moments, and massive crescendos. The joy is shaping those transitions.
You’ve got two drummers, two percussionists, a string section, brass, woodwinds, synths, effects, and pre-mixed playback from the film world – all with very different dynamic profiles. It’s about bringing those elements together with finesse.






FLUTE-Y LOOPS & PERCS
AT: What’s the oddest thing you’ve had to mic?
Colin Pink: That’s Pedro’s [Eustache] territory. He plays multi-woodwinds and electronic wind controllers triggering synths. From tiny flutes to enormous bass flutes. We use a headset mic when he is mobile, an sE V7 at his main position and an sE8 on his duduk. It’s a vast array of gear, but I keep it simple where I can to avoid gremlins.
Then there are the two drum kits with a shared percussion spine. Initially, I used two stereo pairs for overheads, but it got phasey. We switched to three mono overheads – left, centre, right – which solved the issue.
We’ve also got two other percussionists. The trickiest bit? Time-aligning the PA to those corner-stage percussion setups.








MATRIX RELOADED
AT: Talk to us about how you go about time aligning the PA for those seats that are hearing the stage acoustically.
Colin Pink: The text books will tell you to time align your PA to the snare drum. Well, we’ve got five snare drums! So I split the stage into 17 zones. I thought about using TiMax, and it’s brilliant for this sort of thing. But in this case, I used the T software in the Digico desk, which has a cross-point delay matrix.
Each zone is a mono group, time-aligned to front fills and side hangs. We’ve got 10 front fills, each aligned individually. The timing difference between stage left and stage right at the sides can be 60ms – that’s huge. So mono feeds help preserve clarity. Stereo groups still go to the main PA, aligned in a more traditional way – upstage/downstage.
The result? It blends beautifully. The front fills reinforce the natural stage sound, and as you move back, the mains take over. It creates this beautiful early reflection feeling up front. It’s a good trick.







You'll struggle to find a more epic drum setup than this.





ALL HANDS ON HANS
AT: Talk us through some of the rest of the setup.
Colin Pink: Hans plays keys, guitar, and banjo. Then we’ve got two guitarists, two bassists, three violinists, two electric cellists, a 12-voice choir, and an orchestra – mostly strings and brass. The rest is handled by keys or percussion.
The strings are mic’d with Neumann clip-ons, and for brass we mainly use sE T1s – lovely titanium diaphragms, great top-end. French horns get those. Trumpets get sE 4200s – no need to help them cut through.
Drum kits use sE mics on toms, SM57 on snare, and Neumann TLM103s on overheads – warm and big.
I really like the sE stuff – they’ve become my go-to, especially on drums and vocals. Great value, too, though that’s not a big factor at this level.
Percussion gets DPA 4099s, and yes – still love a good old Shure SM57.







Some 50+ musicians make for a huge cinematic music experience.





LAYER CAKE
AT: How do you approach soundcheck? With that many inputs and musicians it’s going to be different to drum/bass/guitar/vocals.
Colin Pink: Right. I don’t really ‘soundcheck’ in the traditional sense. I like the band to rehearse while I mix.  I’d advise caution with that approach unless you’ve done a few laps!
I group by dynamic range, not instrument type. So I’ve got a drum bus, playback bus, band bus, orchestra bus, vocal bus, and a few others. Each one is treated differently because the dynamic profiles are so different. I never put a mastering chain on the master bus – not on this kind of show. Each section has its own ‘bus mastering’, so to speak.
And when I compress, I don’t down-compress, I up-compress. I use tools that auto-gain the content below threshold, leaving peaks intact. Perfect for drums – you retain punch while bringing up body and sustain. Live sound should breathe.
AT: With such a large ensemble, how do you maintain clarity and focus in your mix?
Colin Pink: You’ve nailed it when you talk about focus – it’s about giving each section a moment in the sun. I’m not creating one static mix. It changes every eight bars. I steer the audience’s focus – maybe to strings, then brass, then woodwinds.
At the end, you might feel like you ‘heard everything’ – but probably not all at once. I’m guiding your attention.
I also work closely with lighting. We collaborate to help pull focus. I’ll tell them where the musical spotlight is; they’ll alert me to visual moments. That level of coordination isn’t possible on a one-off show, but on a tour – it’s magic.







The ground-stacked sub array.





GLUE & SUBS
AT: You mentioned earlier how the program is so diverse. How do you glue it together tonally?
Colin Pink: It’s about managing the emotional arc of the show. You can’t stay loud the whole time – it loses impact. Contrast is king. We map out the set list with Hans to make sure it flows. This tour has better pacing – intense moments followed by calm ones.
And yes, we’ve got a lot of subs – 48 KS28s. 24 flown, 12 a side. 24 ground-stacked, two high, 12 wide. There are two feeds: one gentle (extends front fills), one more intense (for effects). Some synths’ frequency range dip below 30Hz. In Batman, we hit 130dB – but it’s not ‘loud’ in the usual sense. You don’t hear it. You feel it.
AT: How much does the room you’re in impact the mix?
Colin Pink: I think of the mix as being part of the architecture. Every venue has its own voice. You’re never going to dominate a tricky acoustic, so the art is in working with it. And you’ll mix differently for a 500-seater than you will for a 20,000-seat arena. The aim isn’t to make it sound like your mix – it’s to make it sound right for the room.












MONITORS: STAGE WHISPERER
Monitor Engineer Maurizio Gennari on finding space and keeping the Maestro happy.
AT: With this scale of production, what’s your mix approach?
Maurizio Gennari: It comes down to making space – prioritising what’s most important in that moment of each track. We’re dealing with around 30 individual mixes, and the musicians are quite particular. They might want something more present in just one section of a song, so I have to be very precise with scene recalls. Once the show finds its rhythm, it becomes more refined, but even the tiniest level adjustment can have massive ripple effects across 24 performers.
AT: So the mic positions must be bulletproof.
MG: Absolutely. Thankfully, Daniel Melcher – our RF guy – is meticulous. He’s with me on stage constantly. His mic placement is so consistent, I can tell from my mix if something is even slightly off. It makes a huge difference when you’re dealing with high SPLs and dense orchestration.
AT: Does Hans get involved in his own mix?
MG: He does, but only to fine-tune. Early on, we established what he wants to hear, and now I’ll adjust with multitrack recordings if needed. His mix needs to be full and supportive, with his own instruments just above the bed so he can play comfortably. He’s incredibly perceptive – he has an exceptional ear and really understands what he’s listening for. There’s no fluff – it’s about clarity and intention.
AT: Klang is part of your workflow now?
MG: It’s been a game changer. Klang lets me spatially separate playback elements like clicks, count-ins and tracks – moving them away from the centre image to clear space for live instruments. I even feed audience mics into it – binaural head plus some shotguns – so it all feels natural and open when Hans speaks between songs. It’s subtle but powerful. I switch it off occasionally just to remind myself how much of a difference it makes.










IT’S ALL K ON THE NIGHT
AT: L-Acoustics is your touring PA – how does it assist?
Colin Pink: The real joy of L-Acoustics is its consistency across the range. Whether it’s K1s, K2s, or the short-throw elements, they sound remarkably similar where it counts: at the listening position. That lets you get surgical with your system design without worrying that it’ll sound stitched together. And the M1-P1 platform—absolutely brilliant. It makes system setup quick, accurate and repeatable.
Something I carried over from my theatre days: you can dream up a complex system, but if you’re still hanging delays at doors open, it’s useless. With L-Acoustics, you can design in Soundvision, do your sweeps, and suddenly the heavy lifting is out of the way. I rarely EQ anything above 200Hz anymore. The mid and top are that good. Mostly you’re wrangling the low end, which is where unpredictability lives.
AT: So once the rig is tuned, your mix just… works?
Colin Pink: Ideally, yes. If the PA is properly aligned to the room, the mix should translate almost untouched. That’s essential on a show like this – if you’re rebuilding a 200+ channel mix every night, you’ll lose the plot.
AT: You’re using virtual soundcheck to speed things along?
Colin Pink: Absolutely. [System Engineer] Tom [Jacobs] time aligns and tunes the system, then we play a few reference tracks. I’m very fond of Cleveland Symphony’s, 1979 version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition – recorded with a stereo pair, it’s wide open and lets you really sense what’s happening in the system. Once we’re happy with that, I run the multitrack. It’s brilliant – I can solo out sections, spot weirdness, and be a couple of steps ahead before the band walks in. So the actual soundcheck becomes more about ear mixes and fine adjustments at FOH. Ideally, the mix is already there.













Colin Pink: We’ve got playback running timecode, which lighting and video rely on. We also send MIDI timecode to the keyboard rigs, which run Cubase, locked to that code. We handle patch changes and clock for modular synths, so oscillators and arpeggiators are synced. It’s bonkers – but it works.





RF: RADIO GA-GA
RF wrangler Daniel Melcher keeps the signal flow clean and the tour sane.
AT: That’s a serious RF arsenal you’re carrying…
Daniel Melcher: We’ve got 32 x stereo IEM channels using the latest Shure digital systems. Then 44 Axient wireless channels, 73 belt packs for IEMs and another 60 for instrument transmitters. It’s all packed into a Dante-enabled backbone, no analogue conversions – everything’s digital end-to-end.
AT: That’s a lot of coordination. What’s the hard part?
DM: It’s not just about spectrum scans and calculations. The real challenge is the human factor – movement on stage, unpredictable interference, LED walls, moving trusses. You can model RF conditions from the ground, but until you walk that stage and investigate, you’re flying blind. I’ve found oddball issues from electrified trusses before – stuff that would never show up on a scanner.
AT: Any RF war stories?
DM: Miami. Total nightmare. Massive RF congestion. We had to reallocate channels, cut back a few and re-coordinate under pressure. But we made it work. No show stoppage, and that’s the main thing. Every gig brings something new.
AT: You’re running Shure across the board?
DM: Yeah, even though I’m German and probably should be using something else! But Shure’s Axient system is rock-solid, sounds great, and Maurizio likes it. Plus, the frequency coordination is smoother than anything else I’ve used. It’s become the go-to on big tours for a reason.
























SOUNDVISIONARY
AT: Tom, you’ve been with Hans Zimmer Live for a couple of years now. What’s the current PA configuration?
Tom Jacobs: We’re running L-Acoustics. In Australia we’re not carrying our own rig – we’ve partnered with JPJ Audio here – but we’ve kept the same system architecture. Right now we’re flying 20 x K1s with four x K2s as downfill for mains. The side array is 12 x K2s. Normally we’d fly eight K2s with nine to 12 x Kara IIs on the side, but this works well.
Sub-wise, we’ve got 12 x KS28s per side in the air, 24 more on the ground. Ten x A15s do front fill duty, and in this venue we’re flying nine Kara for delays – some venues need up to 12.
AT: How are you designing and managing the system?
Tom Jacobs: We use L-Acoustics Soundvision for all the design work. Before this leg, I dropped our full system model onto all the Australian venues to maintain consistency. Once that’s sorted, I export to LA Network Manager for control and monitoring.
That’s also where M1 comes in. It uses swept sine waves instead of pink noise, which gives us much more resolution. I take measurements from multiple points in the room and average them to make EQ decisions. Often before I’ve even heard the PA, I already have a good idea of what it’ll do.
AT: That’s all virtual?
Tom Jacobs: I model in Soundvision, measure in M1, then tweak things like phase alignment, crossover points, and EQ – all before the PA is even warm. After that, it’s about walking the space, listening, and making small adjustments via a tablet.
AT: And what sort of SPL are we talking?
Tom Jacobs: It’s not particularly loud, to be honest. We average 89–90dBA over 10 minutes, peaking around 100. It’s not a rock show – it’s cinematic. It needs to feel big, not just loud.
AT: You’ve got a reputation as an L-Acoustics devotee. What keeps you coming back?
Tom Jacobs: Consistency, again. Whether it’s a massive K1 rig or a Kara side hang, they all carry the same L-Acoustics sonic signature. Different shapes, different curves, but they’re voiced to play nicely together. With M1 and P1, I can get a small side array to blend seamlessly with the mains. And when people tell us, “I forgot there was a PA,” that’s the biggest compliment. That’s the goal.
AT: Colin mentioned his matrix delay musical theatre trick.
Tom Jacobs: Right. We’ve got a matrix of 17 delay positions, all time-aligned back to stage. It’s critical, especially in the front rows where you’ve got both acoustic sound and the PA arriving at different times. The delay matrix ensures everything hits at once.
AT: Dare I ask if an L-ISA spatial audio upgrade might be in the pipeline?
Tom Jacobs: Funny you mention it. I’ve got an L-ISA processor with me on this tour. We did some experimentation in Sydney – ran a left-centre-right delay configuration, which was a good entry point. There’s definitely potential. It’s a conversation for future tours.




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