Author: koralierousseau

The historic Metro club in Chicago recently celebrated their 40th anniversary, and the venue simultaneously underwent a major audio upgrade. “In 2021, we had changed everything about the PA – except the actual audio consoles,” recalled installer John Wagner of Ayre Productions. The staff at the club eventually told Wagner that they wanted to explore changing out the front of house and monitor consoles as well. “They inquired about Allen & Heath’s dLive platform, so we set them up with a demo.” Local sales rep Shawn McLoughlin soon brought in two dLive S5000 surfaces for the team to try out, and it was a perfect match. “dLive was leaps and bounds better than what they were using previously,” noted Wagner. “They really liked the sound and the workflow.”

“We’re a small venue that hosts a lot of big acts,” explained Ben Gordon, the venue’s monitor engineer. “So we’re always trying to minimize our footprint without sacrificing functionality. dLive hit all the marks for us.” Justin Yates, who runs front of house, appreciated the platform’s flexibility and ease of use. “We get a lot of guest engineers, some of whom aren’t familiar with digital consoles. With dLive, it’s easy to get them up to speed and mixing a show in a couple of minutes.” The team eventually decided to purchase two dual-screen dLive C3500 surfaces, along with a pair of CDM48 MixRacks. “Guest engineers are really excited to see the dLive consoles,” said Yates. “Even the folks who bring in their own console are curious and want to play around with a dLive.” 

The front of house and monitor dLive systems are each equipped with AES output cards, which allow them to feed the venue’s amplifiers using digital AES/EBU signals. “That’s been a long goal of ours – to be digital as much as possible,” noted Gordon.

Both Gordon and Yates were impressed by the dLive’s full gamut of DEEP processing and compressor emulators. “I really like the Hypabass sub-harmonic synthesizer” noted Yates. “I’ve been experimenting with that plugin to add thickness to my tom channels. I also like the sound of the different reverbs on dLive,” he added. Yates specifically likes the Mighty compressor, which is inspired by a classic transistor array VCA dynamics processor. “That one is so sick.”

“It’s the first time on a digital desk that the compressors actually sound different,” remarked Gordon. “On other digital consoles, you can switch through compressors without really being able to tell the difference. With dLive compressor models, you can actually hear the different characteristics. It’s been fun using them to blend sources into the mix.” For monitors, Gordon also likes using the dLive’s Source Expander. “It helps to clean up vocals for in-ear mixes. If you get the sidechain settings just right, you can eliminate a lot of noise bleeding into the lead vocal mic without missing a lot of articulation.”

Following a lull during the COVID pandemic, Metro has re-emerged as an A-list venue with an intimate feel – recently hosting big name artists like Metallica, Green Day, and Fallout Boy. “Front of house is about 30 feet from the stage,” noted Yates. “It feels like you’re right up there with the acts. I think that’s what makes it such a unique experience at Metro.”

In 2018, sound engineer Jeremy Grodhaus was looking for the right audio consoles for historic music venue Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he works as the A1. Their previous front of house and monitor consoles were growing long in the tooth, and Grodhaus wanted a platform that would tick all the right boxes while future-proofing them for years to come. 

“We get a lot of guest engineers of various different experience levels,” noted Grodhaus. “The console had to be relatively easy to walk up to and start mixing in a hurry.” He also remarked that the venue hosts a variety of corporate and non-music events, meaning “the new console had to be flexible.”

Grodhaus compared Allen & Heath’s platform to other manufacturers during the purchasing process, but nothing matched dLive’s value and intuitive workflow. “I hadn’t heard a bad thing about dLive, and I appreciated that the company was continuously updating firmware with new features.”

Cain’s full setup now features a dLive DM32 MixRack for front of house, connected to a 28-fader, dual touchscreen S5000 control surface. The DM32 houses a gigaACE card, which allows for a simplified digital split over to a DM0 MixRack powering the monitor console, a 20-fader S3000. In addition, two DX168 expanders were included – which allow for easily accessible I/O on stage.

Grodhaus also added a 128-channel Waves card in the front of house system, in case any guest engineers wanted to use external Waves plugins. A Dante card was included too, which allows for simple multitrack recording or live streaming.

“My thinking behind the setup was flexibility and redundancy” recalled Grodhaus. “The DM32 has a redundant power supply, and the two DX168s plus DM0 can easily work as a backup front of house system in case there’s ever an issue.”

Grodhaus has been using dLive regularly since the venue’s upgrade, and his appreciation for the platform has grown significantly. “The native processing is strong enough that I don’t feel like I miss my external plugins,” said Grodhaus. “The only thing I was lacking was a source expander, but that was thankfully added in a recent dLive firmware update and it has been very useful.”  

Since Cain’s hosts many guest engineers, Grodhaus also has the opportunity to hear their opinions on the new house consoles. “Everybody seems to be very favorable towards it,” he said.  “Even the guest engineers who bring in their own consoles are curious about it, and some mention their interest in purchasing one in the future.”

Production manager and front of house sound engineer Brian Hardaswick started hearing buzz about Allen & Heath’s dLive series in early 2020. “I hit up Sound Image and they had them in stock, so I decided to try out mixing with some multitracks,” recounted Hardaswick. “I fell in love with it right away.” Unfortunately, the ensuing COVID pandemic prevented Hardaswick from taking the console out on the road. “I ended up going to our rehearsal space twice a week for six to eight hours just to practice mixing by myself on a PA.”

Two years later, as live music made its comeback, Hardaswick finally had the chance to take his dLive system on a headline tour with acclaimed heavy rock band In This Moment. “I was blown away by the console – how true the FX are, how responsive the gate and compression is,” noted Hardaswick. “Every little nuance and every little change I make is audible.” Hardaswick also remarked on dLive’s intuitive workflow. “I just sat down at the controls, and it made sense right out of the gate. It’s amazing that the fader layout is fully customizable with a simple drag-and-drop interface.”

The complete system for In This Moment’s tour includes an S5000 control surface, along with a DM64 MixRack – which features 64 mic preamps, 32 line outputs, and a powerful 128-channel 96kHz FPGA processor. Hardaswick also has a 128-channel WAVES3 module installed, which he uses for multitracking and virtual soundcheck with a computer. “The virtual soundcheck feature is an incredible tool. I love how easy it is to switch back and forth between playback and live mixing – especially at festivals when I don’t have much time to dial things in.”

In This Moment lead vocalist Maria Brink poses a unique challenge for Hardaswick, as her live performances involve use of a headworn microphone and lots of movement through noisy crowds. “The dLive’s DYN8 processor is huge for her, because there’s a lot of noise I need to take out – but I don’t want to remove anything important from her actual performance.” The DYN8’s DEEP multiband compressor and dynamic EQ allow for the plugins to only be active in affecting the signal when particular thresholds are hit at specific frequencies. “Her vocals have so much diversity. Sometimes she screams, sometimes she whispers, and I have to keep all that audible. DYN8 allows me to pull certain frequencies during screaming vocals, but also to emphasize frequencies when she’s whispering to make it feel more present and ‘in-your-face.’”

Hardaswick also lauded the built-in parallel compression that is available on every input and mix processing channel on dLive. “I used to have to burn my groups to get a compressor wet/dry mix,” explained Hardaswick. “It’s great that I don’t need a bunch of outboard gear – everything I need is right there.”

This year, In This Moment supported fellow heavy rockers Slipknot on their arena tour. They also performed at the Welcome to Rockville heavy metal festival at Daytona Beach, and are headlining at the Blue Ridge Rock festival in Virginia.

Front of house engineer Travis Wade first mixed on a dLive under some chaotic circumstances. “We were only expecting about six hundred people at a Suicidal Tendencies concert,” recounted Wade. “About four thousand attendees showed up.” The rental company did not have Wade’s usual audio console, but they assured him that the available dLive S5000 would be simple to learn. “I ended up having my mind blown by the desk. It was super easy to get going. I didn’t find myself having to navigate through many pages to get to the parameters I needed.”  

Unfortunately, that concert only lasted about four songs before the crowd got out of hand and the production had to be halted for safety.

Since that fateful day, Wade has shifted to dLive for tours with Sacramento heavy rock band Dance Gavin Dance. Formed in 2005, the group has sold over a million records and performed in nearly 30 countries. “For this tour, I went with a dLive S7000 surface and a DM48 MixRack rented through Sacramento Production Services,” explained Wade. “It’s hands-down my favorite desk I’ve ever been on. I’ve worked on consoles by many different manufacturers, and nothing could beat what it was like mixing on dLive.”

For additional I/O at the front of house position, Wade uses a DX168 expander – which adds 16 dLive mic preamps and 8 line outputs, and connects directly to a dedicated DX port on the back of his control surface.

When it comes to channel processing, Wade is thankful that he doesn’t need an external server to achieve the right sound. “Everyone’s had that nightmare where the external digital FX processor goes down mid-show and your entire mix is gone,” said Wade. “That was a big draw for dLive for me – everything I need is built-in.”

In December of 2020, Dance Gavin Dance held a unique livestream performance from the historic Tower Bridge in Sacramento – which Wade mixed and captured through his dLive. “We had only 12 hours to load in, get the performances, and tear down before they had to re-open the bridge for traffic,” recalled Wade. “We didn’t have time for any errors.” Luckily, his dLive served him well – allowing him to mix and capture individual tracks to a computer via Dante. 

Dance Gavin Dance is set to perform next at the upcoming When We Were Young festival in Las Vegas this October, alongside other big name rock groups such as My Chemical Romance and Paramore. For future tour dates in Europe, Wade noted that he will be bringing along a C1500 dLive surface to maintain the same processing power in a more portable form factor: “It is under the weight limit for airlines, which means I can fly with it with no issue.”

Audio engineer and Tour Manager George Adrian was first introduced to Allen & Heath’s dLive platform at a music festival, when he saw a fellow engineer using one. “I was really blown away by the compact form factor,” he recalled. Adrian later began to realize the advantages of owning his own touring desk, and dLive was a top contender. After evaluating his options, he landed on a 20-fader dLive C2500 surface and a CDM64 MixRack, which features 64 dLive mic preamps and 32 line outputs. Although he obtained it just before the COVID pandemic, Adrian has already taken his new dLive rig out for several major live runs. “The palette of creativity and flexibility is unbelievable,” he noted. “I’m learning new things all the time, and the workflow makes a lot of sense to me.”

Next up for Adrian and his dLive system is an upcoming sold-out tour for American pop punk artist Maggie Lindemann, who released her debut album Suckerpunch in 2022. Adrian is preparing to simultaneously run both front of house and in-ear monitors for the tour – which will make full use of dLive’s flexibility and processing power. “I try to use minimal compression for in-ear mixes,” said Adrian. “So that means double-patching some of the inputs and sending a different processed version to the front of house mix.”

dLive’s DEEP plugin package also comes in handy for Adrian, including the new Dual Threshold Expander introduced in dLive firmware 1.9. “I like it a lot for drums,” he explained. “I use it on basically all my channels.” Adrian also makes use of the DYN8 Dynamic EQ for things like lead vocals and kick drums. “I like to be able to boost certain frequencies only when that frequency crosses a set threshold – and avoid just boosting everything in that signal at that frequency all the time, like you would with a static EQ.”  Adrian notes that Dynamic EQs can help a lot with minimizing feedback as well as minimizing the emphasis of undesirable bleed or spill from the stage or crowd. In the case of vocals, Adrian uses a fast attack to grab and control peaks and then uses the dLive’s OptTronik compressor to add steady compression and balance out the signal.

Adrian also has a Dante card installed in his dLive, which allows for flexible connectivity and expansion. “Using Dante, I can get audio to and from my SMAART rig, I can record multitracks, and also run Virtual Soundcheck,” he explained. dLive’s Virtual Soundcheck feature has become a crucial tool for touring engineers on a tight schedule, by providing input sources to the PA without needing the actual band present. “On this run, we’re gonna have limited time before each performance,” noted Adrian. “We have to get a soundcheck done pretty quickly, and I can even check the IEM mixes without the artists actually playing on-stage.”

Lindemann’s tour begins in March of 2023 with US tour dates, then moves internationally to Australia and Europe in May.

Acclaimed audio console manufacturer Allen & Heath had its largest presence ever at the highly attended AES show in New York City this year, with an expanded booth and multiple dLive training sessions. The main booth featured the full range of Allen & Heath products, from compact analog ZED series mixers and interfaces to their flagship dLive digital 128-channel mixing consoles. Customers had the opportunity to get hands-on experience with hardware, and receive advice from Allen & Heath’s expert staff.

This year’s Allen & Heath booth also featured the AHM series of audio matrix processors, which are aimed at commercial installations in schools, restaurants, houses of worship, and other similar environments. Along with the processors themselves, Allen & Heath demonstrated various hardware and software control interfaces, as well as the variety of expanders comprising the “Everything I/O” ecosystem. Booth patrons saw the complex AHM back-end in System Manager software, as well as the simplified controllers and Custom Control interfaces, available on proprietary touch panels or various mobile devices.

“It was great to join the well over 100 audio exhibitors at the Javits Center and get a chance to connect with new and existing Allen & Heath fans across the industry,” notes Allen & Heath USA Director of Marketing, Jeff Hawley. “As new products like the expanded install-focused AHM Series made their AES debut in the exhibit area, we had the pleasure of offering up a number of packed training sessions on advanced live sound techniques with our dLive Digital Mixing System. Cool tech, engaged audio professionals, a chance to reconnect with old friends and to make new ones—AES New York 2022 definitely checked all of the boxes!”