Ne-Yo 2011 Mr. Smith World Tour

NeYo

In January of 2011 I had the chance of programming and producing the music for the Ne-Yo Mr Smith World Tour which opened in the UK in February. I was asked by management to deliver the music without the usual 8 piece band.  The first thing that I did was request the multi track audio masters for all of Ne-Yo's repertoire. From there, working with Ne-Yo's creative director and choreographer, Jamaica Craft, I worked from a set list. I replaced instrumentation and augmented production by playing and recording parts in my studio, specifically arranged for the purpose of live performance.

NeYo2I composed intros and segues to songs to roll out a show from top to bottom. Working with set designer, Tom Marzullo, I composed an extended cinematic intro to the first song, "Beautiful Monster" from Ne-Yo's last album "Liberty Scale."  The music and multi track was delivered for playback using the just released Avid Pro Tools 9 which was familiar to the FOH engineer. The playback system itself utilized off the shelf multi output interfaces that allowed the maximum number of playback tracks to be mixed every night. This style of augmented live performance is similar to the music and production of the Cirque du Soleil shows. The 2011 Mr Smith World Tour opened in Manchester England and continued to 2 sold out nights at the O2 Arena in London. This was a fitting launch to an amazing show.

Studio

Studio ForJam is located in Atlanta, GA. Set up for music production and mixing this state of the art facility is on the cutting edge of music production for film and television. Specializing in 5.1 surround production and mixing, Studio ForJam interfaces easily with television and film clients form all over the world.

About

John Forbes was raised in Pensacola,Florida. The son of a music store owner and pipe organ designer, John studied music with Harrison Newkirk for 14 years before going on to summer workshops at Berklee College in Boston.  After playing in a regional reggae band for a few years, John moved to Austin, Texas and then to California. In Austin John played with "The Killer Bees," a reggae band nominated for the Reggae Grammy in 1989. [Read More]