ALLEN & HEATH COMPACT CONSOLES COVER COACHELLA
Allen & Heath dLive Digital Mixing Systems were in use on multiple Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival stages in support of a diverse line-up of musical acts and production needs. Launched in 1999, Coachella has grown into a premier music and arts festival, grossing over $114 million and drawing over 250,000 attendees annually.
Praised for its intuitive workflow and tiny footprint, the dLive C1500 Control Surface was a popular choice across Coachella festival stages.
Michael Bangs, Allen & Heath USA Live Sound Touring Manager commented, “Sometimes coming into a festival environment as a visiting artist is a real pain — getting a large mix surface into the FOH position is frequently just impossible. We saw many acts bypass this limitation with the dLive C1500, carrying in a flyable 19” wide desk with the horsepower and capability of desks literally 4-5 times the size.”
In addition to traditional FOH/monitor console support with dLive, compact Allen & Heath Qu Series mixing consoles were deployed to cover a wide range of production duties. “While engineers love to drool over high-end desks like dLive, it is easy to forget some of the unsung production gear heroes of these types of shows,” notes Allen & Heath USA Marketing Manager Jeff Hawley. He added, “Many times the flexible and rock-solid operation of consoles like Qu are the key to keeping festivals running smoothly.”
MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET TOURS WITH ALLEN & HEATH
An Allen & Heath dLive S Class S5000 with DM64 MixRack played a leading role on the tech crew for the Million Dollar Quartet’s recent North American tour. Part theater, part rock-and-roll concert, the show tells an amazing story of a day in 1956 when Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Elvis Presley performed together at Sam Phillips’ Sun Records studio.
Wilson requested the dLive for this tour. “I ran three big metal stages with dLives at the 2017 NAMM,” he said. “They outperformed anything I had ever used and changed my mind about what digital can accomplish.”
Wilson commented, “The dLive’s sound quality is dramatic. And, I love the built-in compression. Even when you push it hard, there’s none of that digital hash. And, I can do parallel compression on my Super 55s without using another channel and with no phase shift. There’s not another desk on the planet that can do that!”
THE SCRIPT GO ROUND THE WORLD WITH DLIVE
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the release of their eponymous debut album, Irish rockers The Script are currently on a world tour, with FOH engineer Steve Pattison (Amy Winehouse, Wet Wet Wet, Glasvegas) behind the controls of an Allen & Heath dLive system.
Pattison’s dLive set-up comprised an S7000 console, DM64 MixRack (with Dante, Waves V3 and superMADI cards) and DX32 Expanders.
As Pattison explains, he chose the dLive primarily for its overall sound quality and powerful built-in DEEP processing. He was also impressed by dLive’s capacity to freely patch up to five audio interfaces, enabling broadcast splits, recording and virtual soundcheck.
CUSTER ROAD UMC RENOVATES WITH THREE ALLEN & HEATH DLIVES
Custer Road United Methodist Church of Plano, Texas recently completed installation of Allen & Heath dLive Digital Mixing Systems for FOH in their main sanctuary and for broadcast and recording throughout the church. The two mixers are part of a major renovation that will soon include a third dLive in a new contemporary worship space.
Jim Carter, Director of AV and IT, manages the church's tech team. He’s excited about the dLive’s built-in, advanced signal processing. "I'll never need artificial reverb in the sanctuary because it’s purposely reverberant for our large pipe organ, choirs and orchestra,” he said. “But, dLive reverb and other effects can be used for our streaming broadcast. And, the dLive gates and compression have already made a world of difference.”
Custer Road’s tech team was impressed with the ease of migration from their previous analog environment and was able to install their new dLives in a single week. "The dLive’s workflow is very adaptable, and the system has obviously been built with the end-user in mind," said volunteer Chris Gebhardt.
Carter commented, "The ability to use dLive scenes to help manage settings changes across our range of services and programs gives us the confidence that we can do big things in the future. And, the dLive is so flexible and scalable that we could add another one in our youth worship space and integrate that into our system. I'm really excited about what the dLive will help us do in the future!"
