Photo above: Pasi Hara mixing monitors for System of a Down on a DiGiCo SD5 desk paired with KLANG:fabriks (photo credit: Josh Mellot)
Celebrated monitor engineer Pasi Hara came from Helsinki’s uniquely Finnish metal community of the 1990s and 2000s, one he embraced enthusiastically as a guitarist himself. However, he soon discovered that his most salient talents lay in putting the technical pieces of a show together. He debuted those with Helsinki goth-rockers H.I.M., starting as their FOH and “everything” engineer, later becoming the band’s monitor mixer. And that’s the role he’s settled into since, for numerous artists like Slash/Guns N’ Roses, The Cult, Tower of Power, Beck, Fergie, Fall Out Boy, and Tool, although he’s likely best known for manning System of a Down’s monitors over the past decade.
What being around the serious sonic horsepower that heavy-metal music engenders has taught Hara is that anything he can do to make the monitoring environment for his musicians safer...
