FERXXO NITRO JAM UNDERGROUND FEID

On his current Ferxxo Nitro Jam Underground tour, Colombian reggaetón and cumbia superstar Feid is pulling out all the stops, unleashing an explosive, neon-green spectacle complete with LED video walls, lasers and monster trucks onstage. Monitor engineer, Carlos “Carlitos” Dickson explains how the singer’s tour requirements have skyrocketed…

Feid’s audio tech is spec’d by Dickson, a Latin Grammy-winning and multinominated engineer as well as a producer who is providing sound for the tour through his Miami-based company, Carlitos Pro LLC. Dickson relies on a streamlined rig based on a Lectrosonics M2 Duet digital wireless IEM system with four M2T dual-stereo half-rack wireless transmitters, an M2CActive Antenna Combiner and M2Ra belt-pack receivers.

Before this tour, Feid was mainly playing clubs with only a fourperson team. This tour has seen the operation expand dramatically as Feid’s popularity continues to climb.

“Right now, Feid is number seven on Spotify Global,” Dickson notes. “Before, it was just four of us: the artist, the manager, the producer and me. Now, we have 56 people on our crew!”

No matter the size of the venue, for Dickson, fidelity comes first: “The Lectrosonics gear sounds completely amazing,” he tells Headliner . “I feel like I’m in the studio when I work with the inears; it doesn’t cut off frequencies, it doesn’t have a filter, it doesn’t compress the audio in any way.”

Feid and Wain (his onstage vocal producer) had the same reaction when they heard the system: “I told the guys, ‘Let’s try it. I like how this sounds; I’m sure you guys are going to like it,’” recalls Dickson. “When they tried the Lectrosonics, right away they noticed the difference, and they loved it!”

On any live show, time is of the essence. Coordinating RF frequencies can sometimes be a long, complex process, but Dickson says his Duet system makes quick work of scanning and assigning.

“One feature I like a lot is SmartTune,” he says. “You can look for the frequency, and it’s very fast and precise. When I’m doing sound check and I’m setting up all of the RF, I get the frequency from the belt pack and scan it, and it’s very accurate. It’s super-fast. Also, with Lectro the range is so good,” he adds. “When I go backstage, to the green room, around a lot of walls, it just follows me.”

As both the tour sound provider and the monitor engineer, Dickson flies with all of his gear and appreciates technology that’s self-contained and easy to transport. His smalland-mighty Duet rig transmits eight stereo feeds yet fits neatly into three rack spaces.

“We have to keep it light and compact,” he explains. “And, of course, we’re not compromising sound quality. When I go to festivals, when the engineers at the local company arrive, they see all this stuff and they say, ‘What is that Lectrosonics gear?’ They think I’m going mono, or four stereo, or something like that. I surprise them when I say, ‘No, I have eight.’”

As someone that has been working with Feid from the beginning, the singer-songwriter trusts Dickson completely when it comes to his live show technology:

“He loves technology,” Dickson nods, “and because I’ve been with him every day since the beginning, he trusts me a lot. I don’t have to ask permission to try things. He just says, ‘If you think it’s going to be good, just do it.’ He’s looking for good audio quality because he’s also a producer and composer,” he points out. “He knows what he’s talking about when it comes to frequencies, compression and all of that. If I move something a couple of dB, he’s gonna feel it. So for his mix, it has to focus on good sound quality. Of course his vocals are a little bit higher. I’ll add an ambience mic and bring that up and down during the show.”

Ultimately, Dickson says, the Duet system gives him everything he needs to send his artists incredible-sounding in-ear mixes, fast. “I don’t want to use anything else but Lectro,” he smiles. “Quality-wise, you can’t compare to Lectrosonics. It’s top quality, even as it’s compact. The sound quality is amazing. Duet is quick, and it is very light. I’m super happy.”