Tag: dLive

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.

Training sessions were offered as well, with veteran live sound engineer Shawn McLoughlin hosting four separate sessions on Allen & Heath’s dLive platform. McLoughlin provided an overview of dLive hardware, as well as practical tips and tricks for configuration and mixing. Students were left with a deep understanding of dLive and everything the platform has to offer.

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!”