Kevin Antunes’ work as a keyboardist, musical director, audio producer and mix engineer has seen him curate live shows for some huge names in the world of music and showbiz, from Shakira and Madonna to Justin Timberlake and Cirque du Soleil. Here he tells Headliner how he’s been staying productive of late, and why he couldn’t do any of it without his JH Audio in-ears...
“It always starts with making the artist feel comfortable; you have to make sure you know who you’re speaking to so that you can eloquently translate their sonic needs,” offers Antunes, who at the moment is gearing up for the reopening of Michael Jackson: One at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay, as the show’s musical director/designer and audio producer.
“Everybody knows Michael’s music, but when you see and hear it in this particular theatre, it’s something else,” he adds. “There’s a set of stereo speakers in every seat by your head, there’s a mono speaker on the back of the seat in front of you, and speakers above and around you. I had 32 different outputs on this custom built matrix that I made in Digital Performer, where I could mix the songs and really do something creative and artistic that hasn’t been done before with an artist of this stature.”
Antunes is incredibly hands on when it comes to supervising in-ear mixes during rehearsals, so naturally he needs gear that he can rely on to a tee. As it turns out, he has been using his JH Audio Roxannes for the past few minutes during this very interview...