Monitor Engineer Gavin Tempany Tours with Kylie Minogue,  at the Controls of a Solid State Logic Live L550 Plus

Live Sound

08/04/26

Melbourne, Australia, 8th April, 2026 — Multi-award-winning Australian singer, songwriter, and actress Kylie Minogue headlined her largest tour since 2011 across the first eight months of 2025. The Tension Tour spanned nearly 70 shows across Australia, Asia, North America, Europe, and South America, in support of her latest album releases, Tension and Tension II.

At the heart of the monitor world was long-time collaborator Gavin Tempany, mixing monitors on his Solid State Logic Live L550 Plus console. While Tempany’s primary responsibility was delivering consistent, high-fidelity in-ear mixes for the artist, band, and performers, the production also demanded an unusually close relationship between the monitor system and the show’s communications infrastructure.

“I’ve worked with Kylie for a long time — I absolutely love this tour.” Tempany said, speaking at the end of the UK leg of the tour. “I mostly mix FOH these days, but I turned down other work to come back to monitors for this one.”

Production for the tour was provided by Solotech, while the main L550 Plus was Tempany’s personal console. “It’s the same desk I used with Tom Jones last year. I know it inside-out, and it’s rock solid.”

Sonic precision and vocal management

The show featured four band members, three backing vocalists, track playback, and Minogue herself. “Playback is mostly transitions, effects, and ear candy — most of the music is played live,” Tempany explained. “People often underestimate pop singers, but Kylie is a phenomenal vocalist, and her backing singers are exceptional.”

Minogue used six different coloured microphones during the two-hour show. Rather than managing them individually, Tempany created a dedicated vocal stem within the SSL console. “All levels, processing, and aux sends live in one place. If anyone needs an adjustment to Kylie’s vocal in their ears, I can make it from the stem easily and instantly.”

The L550 Plus was connected to dual ML 32.32 MADI stageboxes, a single DL32:32 stagebox for AES feeds to the Wysicom inears. Playback and keyboards routed via fiber from stage through a few Directout M8 MADI converters. “We’re capable of running 128 playback, Keys and RF lines. As for Mic inputs we are capable of 64 inputs and 64 analog outputs. We were using around 40 analog mic inputs on this tour.”

Monitor world meets show communications

While Tempany did not operate the show’s Riedel communications system directly, the scale and complexity of the production meant that monitor mixing and comms were tightly intertwined.

“In practice, the monitor desk becomes the point where musical monitoring and human communication overlap,” Tempany said. “There were an unusually high number of interactions between the monitor system and the show comms on this tour.”

The SSL console handled over 260 internal signal paths, including 26 shout lines to musicians, backing vocalists, tech crew, and production departments. FOH received three discrete lines: a tech line, a band-and-tech line, and a dedicated FOH-to-monitor hotline that remained live at all times.

Integration between the SSL console and the Riedel system was handled via Dante, allowing the show caller to speak directly to key personnel, including Minogue, musical director and crew. “The flexibility of the SSL routing meant I could accommodate those interactions cleanly, without compromising anyone’s monitor mix.”

Tempany also employed custom GPIO hardware to streamline specific comms interactions, allowing fast, tactile control over selected talk paths during the show.

Managing distance, delay, and PA spill

Minogue frequently performed far in front of the PA on a T-shaped thrust stage — sometimes more than 20 meters beyond the main hangs. “When the PA is sitting at 103–104 dB at FOH, that’s a lot of energy hitting an open vocal mic,” Tempany noted.

A secondary C-stage at the far end of the arena introduced delays of up to 170 ms. To manage intelligibility, Tempany used SSL’s Sourcerer source enhancer with fast release settings.

“It subtly ducks her vocal on her vocal stem during non-vocal sections — only about 5 dB — but it makes a huge difference to clarity and comfort for everyone. It makes playing in time with these distances easier. I decided early on to do all processing on the console with no outboard gear to make any console swaps quick and seamless”

Built-in analysis and rapid decision-making

“On the front of the desk there’s some convenient XLR inputs. I’ve used one for my talkback mic and the other for an analyser mic. I built a little adapter that goes between the earpieces and a reference mic. As this mic is permanently patched, I can instantly check phase, frequency response, or troubleshoot issues with any of the earpieces, even mid-show. Super useful and fast.”

Timecode, automation, and full redundancy

The entire production ran to timecode, with song and section changes driving SSL scene automation. “The boss has so many hit songs, we have to perform a lot of medleys. Scene recall has to land exactly and consistently on cue,” Tempany explained. “Having said that, each show had a different request section out at the C-stage, so I was able to use the ergonomic layout of the control surface to quickly make changes to cover these fully acoustic and improvised moments”

The system also incorporated SSL’s Blacklight II MADI Concentrator, enabling a fully redundant setup with main and backup consoles running simultaneously.

“Both desks are live. The online one handles gains and outputs, but if anything goes wrong, I can pull a fiber and the B desk takes over instantly. They’re synchronised to timecode, but completely independent. I’ve never needed it — and that’s wonderful.”

Mixing without a sightline

Despite years of working on Minogue tours, Tempany admitted, “I’ve never actually seen a Kylie show. I’m told it’s great!”

Traditionally positioned under the stage or behind soft goods, this tour placed him up to 60 meters away due to lowered staging for improved audience sightlines.

“To keep the super clean look of the show, I’ve mixed monitors from the most unusual places…Corridors, loading docks, dressing rooms— you name it. On this tour I relied on a multiview (or as I like to call it a “MegaSplit” ) video feed from the video department. Kylie rarely speaks directly to me during the show — she’ll signal through one of the backing vocalists, and they have a direct hotline to monitor world.”

Kylie Minogue’s Tension Tour launched on February 15 in Perth, Australia, and concluded on August 26 in Mexico.

SSL at NAB

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