Peter Fredriksson is a Swedish FOH and monitor engineer who frequently mixes monitors for Scandinavian conductor and arranger Hans Ek using an Allen & Heath dLive S Class S5000 Surface and DM64 MixRack. Conductor Ek’s “Bowie in Berlin” concerts pay tribute to David Bowie’s famous Berlin Trilogy in a classical setting with a full symphony orchestra, band, choir and vocalists.
Fredriksson notes, “If you are going to do an engineered crossover concert like this, it’s better to mic the whole orchestra instead of just parts. So we have as many as 100 live microphones on stage.”To manage these inputs, Fredriksson uses a pair of DX32 Expanders for the choir and the band and six DX168 Expanders for the orchestra. This gives him a flexible input system while minimizing mic cable length. The DX32 and DX168 Expanders connect to the DM64 MixRack and Fredriksson sends a split via Allen & Heath’s gigaACE network to FOH engineer Hans Surte Norin who mixes on another Allen & Heath dLive S5000.
Many of the vocalists and band members have in-ear monitors and Fredriksson often adds reverb to his in-ear mixes to give the performers the feeling that they’re in the room with the orchestra. He notes, “Our next goal is to try to do the whole orchestra with in-ear monitors with groups of musicians sharing monitor mixes. This will give us lower volumes on stage and reduced leakage from monitors into open microphones resulting in a tighter and better sound experience for the audience.”
For smaller concerts and fly gigs, Fredriksson owns a dLive C Class C1500 Surface which has the same workflow as the S5000 in a reduced footprint. He uses the C1500’s layers, soft keys and DCA Spill feature to manage inputs and adds a dLive IP8 Remote Controller for extra faders when needed. “The DCA Spill helps me switch quite fast between the DCA groups,” he says.
Fredriksson commented, “The dLive is a really flexible system. You can patch anything to anywhere and I found it quite easy to get into the menus and the work flow with the drag-n-drop. And it sounds great. The artists say they can hear everything – all the small details.”
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