Front of House engineer Clint Rowland was looking for a mixer that was both compact and versatile for his tour with Swedish music sensation LÉON. “I wanted to streamline our setup, and avoid the complications of an analog split,” recounted Rowland. The final system included a compact Allen & Heath dLive CTi1500 19” rack-mountable control surface, along with a CDM32 MixRack for FOH.
Rowland remarked that the smaller footprint of the CTi1500 was not an obstacle in mixing a large-scale tour. “I have all my groups and DCAs on the top layer. If I need to adjust an individual channel, I can always bank down and tweak parameters as needed.”
Next to the stage, monitor engineer Julian Higareda was working with a dLive C3500 surface and a CDM48 mixrack – which fed back to Rowland via a digital Dante split. “We used the same Dante network to patch in our wireless mics and for our FOH/Monitor split” explained Higareda. “Having that Dante versatility and simple integration was a big deal for us on this tour.”
Both Rowland and Higareda noted that the dLive’s DYN8 engine, which features a multiband compressor and dynamic EQ, came in handy during LÉON’s performances. “It’s just a game-changer,” said Rowland. “Especially with the way LÉON sings – she uses her entire range and she uses it differently from song to song. I used to be constantly adjusting the EQ and dynamics for each song, but the dLive did all that work for me.” All dLive systems can support up to 64 instances of DYN8, inserted on input or mix channels.
For changing quickly recalling settings, Higareda made use of the fully granular scene controls on dLive. “I loved how easy it was to build scenes and change them so quickly. I didn’t have to dig in to make updates, I could do that in real time with the built-in Update function.”
“We continue to see hip uses of CTi1500 around the world,” commented Allen & Heath USA Marketing Director Jeff Hawley. “In this case Clint and Julian not only designed a system around meeting the basic needs of the tour, but also around the musical needs of the artist. Being able to put dLive to work in taming and enhancing vocal dynamics, achieving an optimal song-to-song mix balance, setting up scenes to consistently manage those changes night after night…really cool!”
In future tours, Rowland wants to expand on his dLive system with some additional components. “The goal is to dig in deeper and maybe take advantage of some DX or DT stateboxes for additional I/O” explained Rowland. “This system has made me look like a rock star, and it’s made things more convenient on all fronts. This is how we’re rolling from now on.”
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