Tag: dLive

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Allen & Heath

Allen & Heath to Power SXSW 2024 with Largest Presence Ever

Allen & Heath, a leader in professional mixing consoles, is proud to announce its expanded partnership with SXSW, the world’s largest music, film, and interactive media festival. SXSW 2024 will take place from March 8 to March 17 in Austin, Texas, and will feature more than 2,000 acts from over 60 countries, showcasing the best of emerging and established talent across a variety of genres and platforms.

Allen & Heath has been a long-time supporter of the SXSW festival, providing a variety of mixing consoles for the various stages and venues over the years. This year, Allen & Heath will have a larger presence than ever before, supplying consoles for dozens of venues throughout the festival; including Lady Bird Lake, Mohawk, and The Victorian Room. Allen & Heath’s consoles are designed to deliver ease of use, reliability, and flexibility – meeting the diverse and demanding needs of SXSW’s performers and engineers.

“With the size and scope of the SXSW Music Festival, we have artists and crews visiting from a wide array of backgrounds and skill levels,” explained Nate Cross, SXSW Director of Production. “The Allen & Heath soundboards we’re using provide an unmatched level of versatility to our artists and their crews regardless of the size of the venue.”

As usual, the British Music Embassy (BME) venue will be fully powered by Allen & Heath, showcasing the best of UK music at SXSW. The BME will be taking residence at the Backyard at Downright Austin, a spacious outdoor venue in the heart of the festival space. The BME will host a range of showcases, parties, and networking events, featuring up and coming artists from the UK, such as Ash, Gruff Rhys, and Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls. A new dedicated Allen & Heath FOH lounge area will also host 1- on-1 demos and Q&A sessions with Allen & Heath’s experts and ambassadors.

“We’re really excited to offer our support to Production Park and the British Music Embassy again this year at SXSW,” said Jack Kenyon, Allen & Heath Product Specialist. “We’ve got a brand new venue with not one but TWO stages of live music showcasing the very best of British talent on and off the stage.”

Also new for 2024, The Green Room at Brush Square Park will host a smaller more consumer-focused Allen & Heath activation space (in addition to the BME) where engineers and music fans can learn more about Allen & Heath’s mixing desks, pick up some swag and chat with our team.

“SXSW presents such a unique opportunity for us to reach engineers and musicians of all levels,” said Jeff Hawley, Marketing Director for Allen & Heath USA. “We have steadily increased our SXSW presence for years and this outing marks a huge leap in the level of partnership and A&H support on the ground from a production and marketing standpoint. We can’t wait to go big this year!”

“Allen & Heath has been a fixture at SXSW for over a decade and throughout that period has enjoyed contributing to the development of the world’s greatest musical gathering,” added Mike Bangs, Allen & Heath USA’s Live Sound and Touring Manager. “Relationships and interaction with engineers are the lifeblood of our company and a great way to express our commitment to supporting this industry we all love. We are super excited to be a part of the SXSW community and can’t wait to see all our friends and family in Austin!”

For more information about Allen & Heath’s products and events at SXSW 2024, please visit http://www.allen-heath.com/sxsw/ or follow us on social media.

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Allen & Heath

Allen & Heath to Show Off New Products and Offer Training at 2023 AES Show

Leading audio console manufacturer Allen & Heath is preparing for a large presence at the 2023 AES show in New York City, with an expanded booth and daily training sessions. The main booth (#625) on Level 3 of Manhattan’s Jacob Javits Center will feature the full range of Allen & Heath products, including the newly released CQ series of compact digital mixers. Customers will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience with the new products, and receive advice from Allen & Heath’s expert staff.

Free training sessions will also be offered in room 1E05 of the convention center, with Allen & Heath Live Sound and Touring Manager Michael Bangs hosting official dLive Certification and Live Sound Training courses throughout the show.

This year’s Allen & Heath booth will also feature the AHM series of audio matrix processors, which provide solutions for commercial installations in schools, restaurants, houses of worship, and other similar environments. Along with the processors themselves, Allen & Heath will be demonstrating various hardware and software control interfaces, as well as the variety of expanders comprising the “Everything I/O” ecosystem.

“We are especially excited to return to AES this year and show off the new CQ Series digital mixer range,” notes Allen & Heath USA Director of Marketing Jeff Hawley. “The first large batch of CQ units have made their way out to engineers and the feedback from users and dealers has been very positive. This is a great opportunity for folks who haven’t yet had a chance to experience the CQ first-hand to give it a test drive. Of course our award-winning AHM, Avantis, dLive, SQ, and Qu range will also be on hand with networked interactive tracks ready for fans to play with. We’re also looking forward to presenting dLive Certification sessions alongside a selection of user-requested special training sessions at the show. We’ll see you there!”

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Allen & Heath

CJD Productions Tours with Custom dLive Build

When sound engineer Chris DiCorpo made the switch to Allen & Heath’s dLive platform, he already understood the concept of mixing without a full-fledged dLive control surface. “I had a CDM32 MixRack and an IP-8 controller for a while,” he explained. “I was mixing with just the IP-8 for faders, and a laptop running dLive Director to make deeper configuration changes.”

Compact dLive ‘Wings’ rigs like DiCorpo’s allow for lightweight systems that can easily be transported without sacrificing processing power – since all 128 channels and 64 busses of 96kHz FPGA processing are handled in the MixRack. “I actually did take that system out to the UK for a few shows, which was a cool experience,” he recalled. “I knew this compact setup was the way to go, but I wanted something more robust.”

With some inspiration from custom rigs he had seen on dLive forums, DiCorpo started to brainstorm a new setup that would incorporate a second IP-8 controller for more faders, as well as a Waves DSPRO 1000 he owned to handle audio monitoring. “The plan was to use the Waves card in my CDM32 MixRack to send audio to front of house,” he explained. “I also use a Waves server for some PA processing, but the DEEP plugins in the dLive mean that I generally don’t need to insert Waves on any of my channel strips.”

DiCorpo chose a Mac Mini for his new front of house rig, which runs dLive Director, manages the Waves SoundGrid network, and allows multitrack recording and virtual soundcheck with his DAW. “I just started building from there,” he recalled. “I found a company in Canada that allows you to easily design and order one-off custom aluminum enclosures, so I added the connectors I needed, vents and cooling fans, and two spaces at the top where my IP-8 controllers would sit.”

The two IP-8 controllers are powered using a PoE switch, which also acts as a network interface with the dLive MixRack, computer, and Waves server. A wireless router is also connected to the MixRack, which sits at the stage for performers to control their monitor mixes using mobile devices.

For screens, DiCorpo mounted two 12″ touchscreen monitors on arms that can be removed when the rig is transported. “When I want to disassemble, I just remove the threaded thumb screws and I can lay the monitors on top of the IP-8s,” he explained. “When everything is folded up inside the Pelican case, it weighs about 56 pounds.”

Since IP-8 controllers don’t have as many buttons as a full dLive surface, DiCorpo uses scene changes to alter the functions of the buttons. “The channel buttons default to PAFL and Mute,” he explained. “I reconfigured the buttons in two scenes. In one, they are Select and Mute, in the other they are PAFL and Mix Select. Those two scenes are filtered so they don’t impact any of the other settings on the console, and I can easily flip back and forth with a single button.”

A common question DiCorpo hears when it comes to the IP-8 is how to achieve “sends on faders” for monitor mixes. “Many people assume it’s not possible, but it is,” he confirmed. “You can create a scene for each monitor mix, and assign the faders as Aux sends, rather than Main bus faders. In my layer containing the Aux masters, the 8 buttons across the top select my monitor mix scenes.”

DiCorpo affectionately refers to his custom rig as the “CJD Al2000,” combining his initials, the chemical symbol for Aluminum, and “2000” – to maintain consistency with the official Allen & Heath dLive product naming scheme. “I figured it’s kind of halfway between a dLive C1500 and a C2500,” he clarified. He even added a custom decal for the side of the enclosure.

The completed CJD Al2000 is now getting some mileage, as DiCorpo tours with Boston-based pop-funk band Couch. “Engineers who are familiar with dLive see the IP-8 controllers and can figure out what I’m mixing on,” said DiCorpo, “but still a lot of people ask questions about it and give compliments. It’s a great conversation piece.”

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Yeah Yeah Yeahs Tour Internationally with Dual dLive S5000s

New York indie rock group Yeah Yeah Yeahs are back on tour, with show dates in the US and internationally following the release of their 2022 album, Cool it Down.

Handling mixing duties for the tour are Daniel Good and Nahuel Gutierrez, who started working with Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O following her Danger Mouse collaboration Lux Prima in 2019. “We did two shows at the Ace Hotel in Los Angeles and the band performed one more show in New York,” explained Good. “At that point we weren’t sure if Yeah Yeah Yeahs would ever be performing again, so it was cool to get contacted again after their album came out.”

Good and Gutierrez are each mixing on Allen & Heath dLive S5000 surfaces, along with DM0 MixRacks handling 128 channels of 96kHz input processing. For I/O, various DX168 expanders are distributed on the stage. A SuperMADI card was also included, which allows for a simplified multichannel broadcast feed when needed, as well as a 128-channel Waves card for multitrack recording and playback.

The tour package was provided by Worley Sound, a boutique rental company out of Nashville, TN. “We specialize in custom control packages for our clients,” explained founder Tom Worley. “I think the Allen & Heath price point really speaks to a lot of mid-sized tours that want a compact footprint, and flexibility of I/O expansion through cards and stageboxes.”

Good had limited experience on Allen & Heath’s dLive platform prior to this tour (mixing Todd Terje & the Olsons), but the console had left a good impression on him. “I just remembered that it sounded great, and five or six years later it kicked into my mind again.” Good explained that the production team wanted to use the same gear throughout the tour to minimize prep time locating rental equipment at each stop. “The way you can lay out Allen & Heath consoles and configure the hardware any way you want – we knew that it could accomplish what we needed quickly and easily.” Good also appreciates the flexible workflow within the dLive’s software interface. “Some people can get stuck to certain ways of working, but you can do everything ten different ways with this console.”

“I liked that the console was really easy to understand,” noted Gutierrez, who handles Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ monitor mixing. “It fit the budget, and it was great to have the shared stageboxes for [Good] and myself. It saved us a lot of space and weight in the touring package. The more we used the consoles, the more we liked them.”

Gutierrez notes that the suite of processing plugins built-in to dLive also make mixing shows more convenient. “We basically mix everything in the box, the DYN8 dynamic EQ is fantastic, as well as all the onboard FX and parallel compression options.” After the second day of rehearsals, the band already remarked to Gutierrez that the audio sounded better. “Dan [Good] has also been getting amazing reviews because the shows have been sounding fantastic.” Good shares enthusiasm for the DYN8 dynamic EQ and multiband compressor plugin. “I use that mostly on keyboards, stuff that really resonates in the room.”

The dLive’s new Source Expander plugin comes in handy as well for the duo. “That’s becoming a really good tool to clean mixes,” noted Gutierrez. “I have it inserted on cymbals, vocals, and a couple of the open mics that are not used frequently to eliminate background noise.”

For creating distorted vocals on certain songs, Gutierrez employs the Dual Stage Valve preamp emulation. “It’s probably one of the best vocal distortions I’ve heard,” he remarked. “We’ve tried pedals and a few other solutions, but nothing sounded right until we found this emulation.” Good also uses the various preamp models at front of house to add more color to his mix. “I was blown away when I first discovered those,” he recalled. “They’re so versatile, you can pretty much get anything you want out of a channel.”

Both engineers rely on dLive’s Scenes feature to recall preset mixes for each song in the band’s set. “At first I just started by muting or pulling faders for channels I knew weren’t used on that song,” explained Good. “As the tour progressed, I picked up on little things I wanted to tweak – adding in EQ changes, fader movements, and panning. It’s pretty awesome that dLive allows you to scope the dynamic EQ separately from the rest of the channel processing, that’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

Deviating from most modern performances, Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ shows do not rely heavily on backing tracks. “The guitarist has a loop pedal with some pre-recorded loops,” explained Gutierrez. “But he has to trigger them in time, there is no computer running a click track or keeping things in sync.”

For on-stage monitoring, Yeah Yeah Yeahs rely almost entirely on IEMs for their current tour. “Everyone uses in-ears except for the drummer, who receives stems into a small mixer and does his own headphone mix,” explained Gutierrez. “It’s the first full tour for the band on in-ears – but once they got used to them, they were really happy with it.”

At front of house, Good uses dLive’s display output to set up a live RTA on an external monitor. “It’s cool to have that without having SMAART, to see how things are translating.” He also makes use of the console’s ABCD input feature, which allows a user to quickly swap the input source of a mic channel using a user-defined SoftKey. “There are so many SoftKeys that I was almost looking for reasons to use them,” he joked. “Karen will jump mics sometimes – I need to be ready to swap from wired mics to wireless instantly and in pitch black, so I can do that now with a single button push.”

“The engineers seem to really be enjoying the consoles and having great results,” said Tom Worley. “Even the band was telling me how the sound is improved and how happy they are.”

Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ tour is ongoing, with two shows in Brazil this September.

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Allen & Heath

House of God Productions Goes Big With Allen & Heath

House of God Productions is a creative design and consulting firm based out of California, focusing mainly on houses of worship. “We design worship centers, sanctuaries, and even produce albums,” explained President and Founder, Justin Lusignan. “Our mission is to enable churches to express the truest form of themselves. We want to help them be the unique church that they are.”  

House of God has provided AV and production services to churches across the country, including Influence Church and their associated faith-based record label Influence Music. “That’s been an ongoing project,” said Lusignan. “We’ve been working with them for around six years.”  

For the past three years, the team has also been working with the multifaceted Christian organization, Jesus Culture – which consists of a Christian record label, two churches in California, a school of leadership, and a web video and podcast network. “We help produce, record, and track their albums,” explained Lusignan. “We also manage the installation and consulting projects at all of the campuses. That can sometimes mean putting in new lights, or an LED wall, or new speakers, or a recording setup.”  

House of God recently upgraded Jesus Culture’s two campuses to Allen & Heath’s dLive platform, which helped consolidate their system. “We were looking at getting an external server to run plugins on their existing consoles,” recalled Lusignan. “But once we factored in all the inserts and plugins that dLive has accessible natively, it eliminated the need for any external processing. We were kind of killing two birds with one stone by replacing their console with dLive: they got a much better and more up-to-date console, and also scratched that itch for more plugins and processing.”  

The organization’s dual campuses in San Diego and Sacramento are now running identical systems, with 24-fader dLive C3500 control surfaces at front of house and CDM64 MixRacks for I/O and channel processing. The surfaces are also equipped with Dante cards to split off to the broadcast mix.  

For monitor consoles, Lusignan’s team put in a pair of Allen & Heath SQ-7s with DX168 stageboxes for additional outputs. “The band is ecstatic about the improvement,” he said. “Their in-ear mixes have come through so much clearer, and they don’t need to set up drastic EQ curves to compensate anymore. It’s really fun when a client notices an immediate difference.”  

Lusignan and his organization first took notice of Allen & Heath’s product line in 2020. “I saw some articles about the Avantis online, and it seemed a little too good to be true,” he recalled. “Then I ended up using one that belonged to a friend of mine, and was really impressed.” At another install, Lusignan brought along an Avantis to compare to the venue’s existing console. “I ran an A/B test to hear the difference with the same PA in the exact same room. It was crazy to hear the difference in clarity and how much more space there was to the sound.”  

For a later upgrade at The Rock Church, Lusignan decided to spec an Avantis with a Dante card and several DT164-W Dante-enabled stageboxes for distributed I/O throughout the venue. “It was really cool how we could digitally split those same Dante inputs to their in-ear mixer, front of house console, and the broadcast mix – all right from the floor boxes,” he recounted. “It was super easy to integrate, and the client is still happy with it. It’s so simple and easy to use.”  

The Allen & Heath platform’s ease of use has been a major selling point to Lusignan, since his company is focused on house of worship clients. “I can get people trained on (Avantis) in under an hour,” he explained. “With churches, it’s often volunteers with limited experience mixing, and they just feel at home on those consoles. It’s a huge plus for me.”

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Allen & Heath

dLive C1500 Powers Death Metal band Dying Fetus

Front of house engineer and Tour Manager Rhys Welchman was doing sound at some local venues in the Washington, DC and Baltimore area when he was approached by Trey Williams of death metal band Dying Fetus, who was in attendance at one of his shows. “The rest is history,” recalled Welchman. “I’ve been working with the band since then. I grew up listening to Dying Fetus, so once the reality started to set in that I would be mixing them… it’s still pretty crazy to think about.”

When working sound at various venues, Welchman gained experience on a wide range of mixing consoles – but opted for Allen & Heath’s dLive C1500 as his touring console for Dying Fetus, based on a recommendation from his colleague Travis Wade, front of house engineer for Dance Gavin Dance. “Many tours of our size seem to be using a C1500,” recounted Welchman. “Travis told us it’s a really powerful console and it’s cost effective as well. He also brought up that Allen & Heath is constantly updating their consoles with new features and they listen to user feedback.”

Once Welchman knew he would be mixing with dLive, he began building up a show file in advance. “The intuitive user interface was really helpful, especially since I was mixing the band for the first time,” noted Welchman. “It often takes a couple of shows to get a grasp of the band and how they sound, so the user-friendly dLive workflow was pretty awesome. I got confused by a couple of things, but I found some great instructional videos online that explained the functions in depth. Travis also helped me out with some workflow tips.”

Welchman notes that being organized is key when mixing bigger shows on a compact surface like the dLive C1500. “I follow the same rules where Layer A is always show control, Layer B and C are input layers, and so on. It’s important to be consistent so that you can find things quickly. The same with user-defined softkeys.” 

Paired with the C1500 at front of house was a DM32 MixRack at the stage, which features 32 mic preamps and 16 line outputs, along with 128 channels of input processing and 64 flexible buses. Welchman also likes to use a Dante card for Virtual Soundcheck when the band has limited time to set up before a performance. “That (Virtual Soundcheck) really came in clutch for me,” said Welchman. “To be able to quickly load up the stems from last night’s show, and start firing through the inputs while the band is setting up – it really helps make use of the time we have.”

Welchman also appreciates the multitude of processing functions available to him on dLive, including the Transient Controller from the dLive’s RackExtra FX library. “Dying Fetus’ drummer uses a 13-inch mahogany snare that is fairly shallow and he’s tuned the head up all the way,” he explained. “It sounds like someone dropping a quarter on a table. It gets lost very quickly in the mix, but it’s very integral to their sound – so that Transient Controller is key. I also use it on the kick when in those more cavernous venues.”

For dynamics control, Welchman likes to use the dLive’s new BUS Compressor added in firmware V1.9. “That plugin for me is pretty much a necessity,” he notes. “That was always getting used on the main bus, the guitars, and sometimes the drum overheads.” Welchman also uses the 16T DEEP compressor on the bass group. “The fact that I can scale my mixes is really useful. I don’t use any AUXes at front of house, so turning those mixes into matrices  and channel groups that I can use for additional processing is very useful.” 

Dying Fetus just wrapped up their tour with a sold out show at House of Blues in Anaheim, but will soon be off to perform additional shows in South America and European festivals.

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Allen & Heath Levels Up at NAMM and NAB 2023

April 2023 was a busy month for Allen & Heath and their US distribution partner American Music & Sound. Starting with The NAMM Show in Anaheim, the brand presented its wide range of products in a sprawling booth in the convention center’s Pro Audio hall. The popular booth featured opportunities for hands-on mixing with everything Allen & Heath has to offer — from small format analog ZED consoles to powerful 128-channel 96kHz digital dLive systems. The booth also featured a dedicated section for the brand’s expanding AHM series of installation processors and peripherals.

Meanwhile, on the second floor of the convention center, Allen & Heath Live Sound and Touring Manager Michael Bangs offered multiple jam-packed live sound training courses to NAMM attendees. Those who could make their way into the crowded training room had the opportunity to learn about a range of subjects, including dynamics and frequency control, mixing high channel counts on a compact console, quick festival mixing changeovers, house of worship mixing, and modern workflows.

Astute visitors to the NAMM show may have also caught several Allen & Heath consoles in use at the various performance stages — including a dLive S5000 surface at front of house and an Avantis console at monitors for the show’s outdoor Arena Plaza stage operated by sound company Avante Audio. Another pair of dLive systems could be found in use at the Hilton stage (provided by DJE Production Services), as well as an SQ-5 for the lobby stage at the Sheraton hotel. At the Pre-NAMM Hang sponsored by Worship Musician, another Allen & Heath SQ-5 was in use supporting a special performance by guitar legend Doyle Dykes.

The A&H team did not leave NAMM empty handed, as the company’s versatile 64-channel Avantis console earned the brand a fifth consecutive Dealer’s Choice Award from Musical Merchandise Review for its feature-packed V1.2 update. The awards for Avantis V1.2 didn’t stop there, as the new console firmware also captured the Parnelli Award for Indispensable Audio Technology. “The Parnelli Award win for Avantis was certainly a highlight of the NAMM Show for us,” noted Allen & Heath USA Marketing Director Jeff Hawley. “Often referred to as being the Oscar of the live event industry, the Parnelli is a tremendous honor and a moment that we’ll all remember from NAMM 2023. We’ve been amazed at the continued success with Avantis and we plan to keep updates like those seen in V1.2 coming in the future.”

The Allen & Heath USA team also presented their annual sales meeting at the show, awarding top performing sales rep firms and individuals for their outstanding 2022-2023 activities. The company awarded the coveted ‘Bulldog’ awards to a special pack of tenacious and highly effective sales professionals. This year’s recipients included Zak Rickard (Geer Tech), Gilbert Perales (Brownestone), Jaylon Shane (Pro Tech Marketing), Dan Ankney (Online Marketing), Shawn McLoughlin (Audio Biz), Wes Pitzer (Highway Marketing), Chad Rigler (HWPco), Brooks Platts (HWPco), and Craig Kutteroff (Mainline Marketing). The Outstanding Sales Support award was presented to Julie Boatright of Audio Biz. Dennie Edwards (Highway Marketing) was awarded the Marketing Excellence award. Outstanding Performance awards (based on overall territory sales performance) were awarded to Audio Biz, Brownestone, Cadon Technical Sales, Excellence Marketing, Highway Marketing, HWPco, Mainline Marketing, Online Marketing, Pro Tech Marketing, and Richard Dean Associates. The Rep of the Year award went to Audio Biz.

“Congratulations to Audio Biz for their outstanding year and the Rep of the Year award win,” said Pat McConnell, National Sales Manager for Allen & Heath USA. “All of the Bulldogs, Julie, and Dennie also deserve a special thank you for all of their work in the last year. Combined with the sheer number of Outstanding Performance awards, these results point to the fact that we’ve got one of the greatest sales and support teams in the industry. We’re set to level up once again and I look forward to seeing who gets to stand on the awards stage in 2024.” 

Immediately following The NAMM Show, the Allen & Heath team made its way over to the Las Vegas Convention Center to host its largest ever booth at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) show. The Allen & Heath booth at NAB once again featured products from each of the brand’s diverse product series, and was visited by a variety of attendees, ranging from longtime fans to curious newcomers. “It was really rewarding to see Qu consoles in use ‘organically’ across the NAB Show for training areas and breakout rooms,” adds Rob Impala, VP of Pro Audio for American Music and Sound . “We had a chance to catch up with broadcasters, church technicians, installers, consultants and engineers who rely on Allen & Heath to tackle a wide range of audio applications. As always, we were all ears when it comes to product feedback and requests from the field and we’re certainly energized and ready to get to work on releasing the next round of new and exciting software and hardware updates soon.”

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Metro Club in Chicago Upgrades with dual dLive Consoles

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.”

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Allen & Heath

dLive is Platform of Choice for Historic Cain’s Ballroom

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.”

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Allen & Heath

In This Moment Tours with dLive S5000

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.