Grammy-winning engineer Paul Falcone brought The Celebration of Mimi tour to the Philippines, mixing Front of House for Mariah Carey at the SM Mall of Asia Arena in Pasay City — Manila’s iconic waterfront concert venue along the shores of Manila Bay.
October 14, 2025 — SM Mall of Asia Arena, Manila 🇵🇭
Presented by Wilbros Live, the sold-out Tuesday night show became an emotional highlight of the Asia run. Filipino fans — known for their deep devotion to Carey — were treated to a historic moment: the first-ever live performance of “All I Want for Christmas Is You” on The Celebration of Mimi tour. The surprise closer sent the arena into a frenzy, turning an October night in Manila into an impromptu Christmas celebration.
Falcone delivered the FOH mix on a DiGiCo Quantum 5 (v2025) through an L-Acoustics K1 (8/side) + K2 (12/side) mains system with K2 outfills (12/side), Kara II side outfills (6/side), KS28 ground subs (32), and Kara II frontfills (8). System processing was handled by 2x L-Acoustics P1 processors and tuned with Smaart v9 using iSEMcon EMX-7150 reference mics, mixed on L-Acoustics 108P nearfields with SB18 sub. Mariah’s vocal ran through a DPA 2028-B-SL1 capsule on a Shure Axient AD2 wireless transmitter, with all wireless systems operating on Shure Axient AD4Q receivers (16ch) with AD2 handhelds in G10 band 470-542MHz. Monitors featured L-Acoustics X15HiQ wedges (6) with 3x SB18/SB28 subs and Kara II sidefills (4/side) with SB28 (1/side), while the monitor console ran a DiGiCo Quantum 338 (v2025). In-ear monitoring utilized Shure PSM1000 G10 (470-542MHz) systems.
At the FOH position, dual Bricasti M7 reverb processors anchored the effects chain alongside Waves SuperRack running on 2x redundant Titan-R X14 servers with Mercury and Studio Classics plugin bundles via MacBook Pro M2 Max. A DiGiGrid MGB bridged MADI to SoundGrid across a Netgear GS308P network. Full 128-channel multitrack capture ran on Pro Tools Ultimate via Apple Mac Studio. Band mics included Telefunken M82 and M80SH, Beyerdynamic M201TG, Sennheiser e604, AKG C451B and C414 EB-P48, Earthworks DM20 drum clips, Shure KSM27, Sennheiser MKH70, and Radial J48 DI boxes. Timecode sync was managed via Hog MIDI LTC Widget. Independent software rigs running AlphaLabs DeFeedback and LiveProfessor with LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven reverbs completed the digital processing chain.
On the analog side, with conversion handled by Ferrofish, Falcone introduced processing by Empirical Labs Distressors, DBX compression, SSL channel strips, and both 500 series modules and full hardware versions of Bettermaker compressors, allowing for snapshot recall of analog compression. The rig was rounded out with MIDI interfaces by iConnectivity, switching by DirectOut, and timecode distribution by VisualProductions TimeCore.
More than a concert — a tribute to a legacy shared between a musical icon and a nation.
🌏 Full Tour: The Celebration of Mimi — Asia Tour 2025