Continuing a run of successful festivals as the ‘walk-up-and-mix’ house consoles of choice, Allen & Heath’s dLive and SQ digital mixing systems headed to Festival Musilac in Aix-les-Bains, France, to provide audio support across FOH, monitors and comms.
Charged with supplying audio for the entire festival, rental company Dushow worked with Allen & Heath’s French distributor, Algam Entreprises, to provide dLive as a house console option on two stages. The dLive systems supplied included S7000 and S5000 surfaces, paired with DM64 MixRacks and fitted with fibreACE cards for optical links with the stage.
Bruno Dabard (Application Engineer at Algam) comments, “dLive is becoming more and more popular amongst the engineering community in France – it has an extraordinary balance between high-quality sound and powerful tools, all in a reliable package. It’s more than just a console, it’s an entire ecosystem.”
Visiting engineers for acts such as Ugly Kid Joe and Requin Chagrin chose to mix with the house dLive systems on the day, while Therapie Taxi and Kimberose both brought in their own dLive rigs. Antoine Guests (engineer for Therapie Taxi), regularly tours with dLive, commenting “In my opinion, dLive’s flexibility, ergonomics and power are what make it a fantastic console, not to mention its Dyn8 processors (each with a 4-band compressor and 4 bands of dynamic EQs), which allow me to control my audio groups efficiently.”
Additionally, chosen for their ease of use and extensive I/O capabilities, four SQ-5s were purchased by Dushow to use for internal communications between stage and FOH positions.
Allen & Heath’s Head of Product, Nic Beretta, was at the event to assist engineers, commenting “It was great to not only see touring bands bringing in their own dLive rigs, but also guest engineers choosing to mix with the dLive systems we had there. Most had mixed on one before, toured with it, or had simply heard good things about it and wanted to have a go.”
“We put in the channel list seconds before soundcheck, and in a couple of minutes, they were mixing without any need for help. That’s how intuitive dLive is – it’s the perfect ‘walk-up-and-mix’ festival console.”
Dabard adds, “Dushow wanted to provide the best and easiest to use house tools for this particular high-end festival and give engineers the ability to raise the bar in terms of mixing and sound quality. I’d like to thank the Dushow crew for their team spirit and efficiency and give a special thanks to Dushow’s Alex Capponi for his confidence and Allen & Heath’s Nic Beretta whose contribution was highly appreciated.”
