Ken "Pooch" Van Druten Chooses Waves LiveBox for Iron Maiden World Tour
For nearly a decade, Iron Maiden FOH engineer Ken "Pooch" Van Druten has relied on Waves SuperRack SoundGrid and Waves plugins as a foundation of his touring workflow with the band. This year, he expanded that ecosystem by adding Waves LiveBox, enabling him to run third-party VST3 plugins alongside the Waves processing he depends on every night—while maintaining the reliability required for one of the world's biggest touring productions.
For Van Druten, consistency is everything. Every night on Iron Maiden's world tour, tens of thousands of fans expect to hear the same show, regardless of whether the band is performing in an arena, an open-air stadium, or a venue with completely different acoustics from the night before.
"To excel as an engineer means that you're delivering the same product every night regardless of whatever the venue throws at you—hard surfaces, glass on the walls, all the things that change every single day," Van Druten says. "If you can deliver the same product to the audience in those situations, that's what makes you world-class."
Years of navigating those variables have taught him one important lesson: on a major tour, the gear has to be chosen carefully. "In live sound, unlike making records, when something breaks, that's a huge thing," he says. "We spend a lot of time choosing gear that is consistent, doesn't fail, and keeps going."
Today, his Iron Maiden rig centers around a DiGiCo Quantum 7 console and Waves SuperRack SoundGrid, a platform he has relied on throughout his nine years with the band. But there’s also a new addition: "This year I bought a Waves LiveBox and added it on top of SuperRack SoundGrid," he says. "That's pretty much the only thing I've added this year from previous years."
Rather than replacing his existing setup, LiveBox extends it. The SuperRack SoundGrid system continues to host the Waves plugins that form the backbone of his mix processing—from vocal dynamics and tonal shaping to bass processing, group buses and other critical channels throughout the show. LiveBox, meanwhile, allows him to incorporate VST3 plugins from other manufacturers into the same production environment.
"SuperRack SoundGrid is pretty much all my outboard plugin things, buses, individual inputs, those kinds of things," he explains, “and the LiveBox operates alongside it on a completely separate network. The LiveBox is an all-internal unit where all the networking is inside, but the output of it is Dante. So I have Dante going to a Dante 64 card in the console itself. It's two separate networks running and doing two totally different things."
The flexibility of that architecture was a major factor in his decision to adopt LiveBox.
"The ability to use other VST plugins along with Waves plugins is the reason that I went there,” he says. “Specifically I did it for the plugin by Alpha Labs called DeFeedback. With Iron Maiden, there are ramps that come out on the right and left-hand side of the stage that put vocalist Bruce Dickinson almost in the PA. Those have always been pretty hard to deal with."
With LiveBox and DeFeedback, those moments have become far easier to manage. "It's really a game changer, it’s become a lot better now."
"DeFeedback is authorized to be used on the Waves LiveBox,” he adds, “and I just can't get the same amount of instances on DeFeedback without the Waves LiveBox, so this setup is important for me.”
From there, Bruce Dickinson’s vocal continues through a detailed Waves chain that Van Druten has built over the years for control, tone and consistency. “The second plugin in the vocal chain is the Waves CLA-2A,” he explains. “That’s doing overall vocal compression. That’s its whole job.” Next comes the C6 Multiband Compressor, followed by the Waves F6 dynamic EQ which Pooch uses for “super-surgical compression, real narrow filters and nailing things as Bruce goes from his belly voice to his chest voice.” This is followed by the Waves SSL EQ, “which for me is the overall EQ that I’m using.”
Although DeFeedback handles the main feedback-control task, Van Druten continues to use Waves X-Feedback in the chain for extreme moments: “I use Waves X-Feedback when Bruce gets on the left or right ramps and he’s right in front of the PA, maybe two or three feet in front of it. If I’m still struggling at a certain moment, that’s what X-Feedback is for. Pop that in and boom, it’s all good.”
At the end of the vocal chain, another F6 provides gentler overall dynamic control. “This one is kind of globally compressing, but just little bits,” he says. “I’m talking about 2 dB worth of dynamic compression.”
Waves processing is also central to another defining element of Iron Maiden’s live sound: Steve Harris’s uniquely dominant bass guitar. On the bass DI channel, Van Druten starts with CLA-76. “That’s overall compression,” he says. “It also has some relatively slow attack because I like to let transients through on his bass guitar.” Next is Renaissance Bass, which he uses to reinforce the low end: “His DI itself doesn’t really have some of the lower frequencies that I need in order to make it be a big and fat bass,” he says. “So I’m actually manufacturing the feel of those lower frequencies with the R-Bass.”
After that comes Magma BB Tubes, which adds harmonic distortion: “If you’re not hip to harmonic distortion, get hip to it,” he says. “Harmonic distortion is the new way. It’s a way to make your mixes come through in a way that doesn’t happen otherwise.” A C6 at the end of the bass DI chain provides what Van Druten describes as “tickly global compression.”
But the bass processing does not stop at the individual channel. On the bass group, he uses another Waves chain that includes Vitamin, CLA-2A and multiple F6 instances. “There’s a Vitamin at the top,” he explains. “It does some spatial things, but it does some really cool EQ things as well. Then another CLA-2A and two different F6s that are doing different tasks.” This bus chain helps stabilize the instrument’s behavior across the show: “I’m mixing into it,” he says, “which helps to manage when he’s playing really loud or playing very softly. That’s the reasoning behind having all these plugins.”
Perhaps most importantly for a touring engineer, the platform has proven itself on the road. "I purchased a LiveBox in January, so I've been using it for about six months now," he says. "The consistency of it is amazing—and for me that's ultimately what matters most.”
“I love what I do,” Van Druten sums up. “There’s no better feeling than to work on a mix, pushing a guitar solo, and having 80,000 people react to something you’ve done. It’s a high that the musicians get, and it’s a high that I get too. It gives me goosebumps, and that’s what I keep coming back for.”
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