Solid State Logic Live SSL 550 Plus at the Core of The Eagles Immersive Audio Set Up for Residency at The Sphere ​ ​ ​

Los Angeles, California, November 5th, 2025 — Tom Evans has been mixing shows by the Eagles on a Solid State Logic Live console for the past eight years, choosing the desk primarily for its audio quality, but also relying on the automation capabilities to recreate the band’s iconic sound. But for the band’s residency at the Sphere in Las Vegas — 44 shows over 22 weekends through November 8, 2025 — Evans scrapped his old mixes, rebuilding them from scratch to take full advantage of the venue’s unique immersive audio system.

The Sphere, which opened just off the Las Vegas Strip in late 2023, incorporates nearly 1,600 matrix array speaker cabinets (a total of 167,000 speaker drivers, amplifiers and processing channels) that deliver immersive sound throughout the domed venue, which accommodates around 18,000 people. For the Eagles’ residency, Evans used the 64 aux sends on his SSL Live L550 Plus console, with an L350 Plus running as backup, to send his mix to 42 speaker zones in front of, behind, around and above the audience. “That meant that I could automate things song by song,” Evans explains, sending a specific input to one speaker location for one song then a different location for the next, for example. ​

'The sound' is the thing
​The Eagles and their fans expect every song to sound as close to the original record release as possible, notes Evans, who previously also used SSL’s Live console while working with Eagles drummer and singer Don Henley. “The sound of the SSL is obviously the primary thing. But there's a fair bit of automation of EQs, compressors and things, song to song, because you're jumping backwards and forwards through the decades, so you need very different sounds and textures. It's generally one snapshot per song. That’s the starting point, and then I mix.”

Typically, he continues, “Almost all of the inputs go to stems, and I automate the stems. If I need to do a global EQ change on the snare drum, I do it on the input channel. If I need to do a specific song EQ on the snare drum, I do it on the snare stem. Stems also reduce the number of faders that I have to grab,” he notes, since he will have the snare top and bottom mics on one snare stem fader, or all of Joe Walsh’s guitar channels on a single stem fader. “I really like the stems. They’ve become integral to my workflow.

12-fader SSL Live remote tile
​Evans has also been using a 12-fader SSL Live Remote Tile. “I added it when we started doing the Hotel California songs on tour, because I had more to deal with. I kept it for this residency because it was useful to have that extra, grabbable bank. It's an easy place to get a handle on some of the outputs.”

The Sphere’s stage is set up in front of a proscenium speaker array comprising over 460 speaker modules. To prepare for their residency, the band rehearsed for about three weeks in a large soundstage in Los Angeles in front of a P.A. system supplied by their long-time provider Clair Global. “The Clair crew tuned it and timed it to match as closely as they could what it would sound like onstage at the Sphere for the band,” Evans reports. He set up his mix position in an adjacent soundstage where Clair recreated a small-scale replica of the Sphere’s 42 speaker cluster locations around him.

Adapting immersive mixes for The Sphere
​Prior to production rehearsals, Evans was given a tour of the Sphere’s sound system by the in-house audio team and mixed some recordings using the venue’s proprietary plug-in, which virtualises the immersive system into stereo speakers or headphones. “That gave me a sense of what worked well where,” he says. He also attended a show during Dead & Company’s residency and consulted with the band’s sound crew, including FOH mixer Derek Featherstone, CEO of sound provider UltraSound. On a day off during rehearsals, he flew to Las Vegas to check his live mix recordings through the Sphere’s sound system.

On a typical Eagles show, Evans automates the seven vocal mics according to who is singing lead and who is singing backup. At the Sphere, “The lead vocal is always straight down the middle,” he says. But while the venue’s 360-degree immersive P.A. allows sources to be panned anywhere, he simply panned the background vocals across the width of the proscenium speaker rig. “I didn't go too wide with them, because The Eagles are so tight on their harmonies.”

However, he notes, “You can pan vertically, which helps lift things and give them a bigger feel.” For the song ‘In the City,’ which features a visual of an animated, rotating city block, “The camera pans up and Joe is at the top of the building. So, for the solo, I pan the guitar right to the top of the building,” far above the audience’s heads. “Then, with reverbs and other things, you can throw those behind the audience. ‘Desperado’ has those soft, slow strings, so those can also be really big, and some of the B3 parts can be a little wider, as can some of the swirly effects, like on Joe's solo in ‘Rocky Mountain Way.’ But on the whole, there wasn't a lot of stuff moving around as it wouldn't have fitted the material.”

The Eagles have been performing so long that the songs practically mix themselves, Evans observes. “My job is to not be noticed, and the SSL is perfect for that. The summation is so transparent and preserves the character of all the individual things that you're putting into it, and that enables you to have that great separation. And using the console on a sound system like the Sphere’s, where the system itself is so separated, it's even more so.”

About Solid State Logic
​Solid State Logic is the world’s leading manufacturer of analogue and digital audio consoles and provider of creative tools for music, broadcast, live and post production professionals. For more information about our award-winning products, please visit: www.solidstatelogic.com.

Jeff Touzeau

Public Relations, Hummingbird Media, Inc.

• jeff@hummingbirdmedia.com

• www.hummingbirdmedia.com
• @hummingbirdbuzz