Sticks to faders: Ross Rothero-Bourge’s mic mastery

Ross Rothero-Bourge has made a career out of living life loud, so it’s natural that he needs the right mics that can match his righteous noise-making. The drummer-turned audio engineer is the head of live mixing for The U.K. Drum Show and The Europe Drum Show, the huge music festival/trade show hybrids held in Liverpool and Friedrichshafen, respectively. For the myriad of performance and engineering tasks he carries out, it's AUDIX microphones that he allies himself with.

Rothero-Bourge is also the head studio engineer at Cube Recording, Cornwall’s preeminent rock recording studio. Most recently, he’s been on tour with Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons, led by Motörhead guitarist Phil Campbell. Ross has also worked with Tom Meighan, co-founder of high-energy British rockers Kasabian. However much loudness is essential to the music’s energy, Ross never sacrifices clarity and detail thanks to AUDIX microphones.

His weapons of choice are the D6 and D6X on kick and bass-centric sources, SCX25A as drum overheads, the OM7 handheld as vocal mic of choice, and the PDX720 and PDX520 as surprisingly versatile studio workhorses. Ross shared with us why even the face-melting levels of Motörhead were not too much for his AUDIX mics.

“I’ve just been out on the road with Phil Campbell, the guitarist from Motörhead,” Ross begins. “Even after all these years, Phil has that unmistakable rock’n’roll presence, and the fans were loving every second of it. Partway through my first show with them, I was worried it might have been too loud, but I suddenly remembered that Motörhead held the world record for the loudest concert. That gave me an excuse to turn things up a bit!”

Ross finds the D6 perfect for the Bastard Sons’ kick drum sound, but has recently been intrigued by the new D6X. “I am forever a D6 guy on kick; I have six of them,” he says. “I have a couple of D6X mics now. I put up a measurement mic against one, and went through the switch positions on the D6X to see what midrange frequencies increased gain as I tried the three switch positions — the first position matches the response of the classic D6, that mid scoop that’s perfect for a modern kick sound. I’ve found that in the top switch position, the D6X gets close to flat with a slight top boost. Now, in the studio, I use the D6X on whatever records I’m doing, because it can be a traditional D6 or something more versatile. I just leave it set up because there’s no reason not to.”

Above the drum kit on the live stage of a rock band infamous for body-shaking loudness is the last place one would expect to find sensitive studio condenser microphones, but that’s exactly where Bourge put a pair of AUDIX SCX25A – with surprising results. “I had problems with stage bleed using several other overhead mics,” explains Ross. “The SCX25A was recommended to me by some other very good engineers, so I decided to take a punt with them. They’ve performed much better in this regard. They picked up the kit extremely honestly.”

What the SCX25A did for drums, the OM7 did for vocals. It also caused an epiphany for The Bastard Sons. “I have the whole band on the OM7s now,” Ross shares. “They’re designed to reject off-axis and unwanted signals on loud stages, and they do so quite well. Joel Peters sings lead vocals for Phil and usually brings his own mic because he knows it so well. It wasn’t an AUDIX mic, and I was prepared to EQ and process it in. One day, I caught him using one of the OM7s. He had picked it out, brought up his own in-ear mix with our monitor guy, and was A-B’ing it with his favourite mic. He asked to give it a run for that show, and afterwards, bought his own. Preferring the OM7 to his more expensive favourite is the proof in the pudding.”

Could anything be as impressive as winning over the leader of the loudest band in the world? Perhaps the task Ross set for the PDX720 dynamic studio condenser microphone: “When I got the PDX720, I set myself a challenge. Instead of doing something tired like an unboxing video, I resolved to make an entire record using just the one mic. So, I built it up track by track – kick, snare, cymbals, bass cabinet, and then Rhythm and lead guitars – and you can hear the results on my Instagram. It was a lot of fun, and proved how versatile the PDX format can be. In the studio, we now have that one 720 and a pair of the new PDX520s, its younger brother. Like with the D6X, we tend to leave them set up and ready to track because it’s hard to find anything that replaces them.

The respect Ross Rothero-Bourge has earned from the sound community, not to mention bona fide rock stars, is enviable. His parting advice, to the possibly envious, shows a dedication to his work that parallels AUDIX’s dedication to quality and value. “Be the extra-mile person,” he adds. “Be the first person to show up and the last one out the door. People like to talk about being ‘in the right place at the right time.’ If you’re always there, you can’t fail to be!”