Tag Archives: Allen & Heath

World News

The Baboon Show Takes On Europe

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Chris Mock, FOH engineer for The Baboon Show, with his Allen & Heath dLive CTi1500 digital mixing system.
Chris Mock, FOH engineer for The Baboon Show, along with his Allen & Heath dLive CTi1500 digital mixing system.

Sweden (May 8, 2023)—Stockholm punk act The Baboon Show has been fortunately as much as no good for twenty years, and is at the moment making the rounds all through northern Europe behind its newest album, God Bless You All. Along for the trip is the band’s longtime FOH professional, Chris Mock, who put collectively a management system for the tour to maintain issues mild and transportable.

Key to the system is an Allen & Heath dLive CTi1500 digital mixing system, related to a dLive CDM32 MixRack, and Audio-Technica 3000 Series IEM wi-fi to ship the band’s potent model of punk-rock vitality.

“The CTi was my first alternative, since I usually tour with a dLive C2500 floor,” mentioned Mock. “We selected the attractive CTi1500, on which I can run the identical setup already used on my C2500. I really like the virtually analog really feel of engaged on dLive. It’s actually quick and intuitive in use – I work with quite a lot of results and trip quite a lot of faders in the course of the present, and the CTi1500 permits me to combine in a really dynamic, hands-on method. It’s a extremely nice artistic instrument in that method.”

Mount Calvary Baptist Church Updates Audio System

A complete of 32 inputs come from stage into the CTi1500, together with a pair of electrical guitar mics, a “dust mic” on Niclas Svensson’s drum package, ambient microphones and extra. Mock describes, “All indicators are break up internally, so every enter has a channel for the FOH and one other one for the in-ear combine which is distributed to 6 stereo mixes. Our backline tech/monitor engineer makes use of an iPad related to the CDM32 to make adjustments in the course of the present and it really works completely.”

Mock eschews outdoors plug-ins and usually makes use of the on-board instruments within the dLive for results and such. “I exploit quite a lot of compression with The Baboon Show and love the parallel compression function each compressor options,” he famous. “The VCA spills are additionally tremendous helpful, which opens up an entire new dimension of layers in case you’re engaged on a small floor just like the CTi1500. This method I can entry all 64-plus channels, teams, impact sends and returns on the 12 faders I’ve. I exploit a number of the MushyKeys for DCA spills which is wonderful. I really like the brand new Bus Compressor which I mix with the multiband compression of the Dyn8 to connect my most important combine collectively.”

For its in-ear monitoring system, the band has Audio-Technica 3000 Series IEMs used along side the CTi1500. “The band loves the sound of the Audio-Technica system and it’s very easy and fast to set-up. The crew actually admire the straightforward design and performance of the IEMs and the Wireless Manager software program actually unlocks the facility of the system.

World News

UnderOath Packs Light on Tour

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The UnderOath FOH mix position, with compact Allen & Heath dLive C1500 control surface on top.
The UnderOath FOH combine place, with compact Allen & Heath dLive C1500 management floor on prime.

New York, NY (April 7, 2023)—Across 9 albums and a quarter-century, UnderOath has all the time performed its heavy post-hardcore with a punishing, visceral power that interprets into a robust dwell present. Touring behind its newest assortment, 2022’s Voyeurist, the band has been crossing the U.S. with supporting acts Periphery and Loathe, and serving to to carry that bludgeoning to the lots nightly is engineer J.J. Revell, who additionally acts because the group’s manufacturing supervisor.

Revell has been mixing the band on a compact Allen & Heath dLive C1500 management floor tied to a small format DM0 MixRack to deal with the 128 channels of processing and a GX4816 stagebox. The DM0 connects by way of Allen & Heath’s proprietary multichannel gigaACE protocol to a separate DM48 MixRack close to the stage, which permits for a easy digital cut up with a second C1500 floor dealing with monitor mixes.

Despite the second monitor console, the band doesn’t tour with a devoted monitor engineer for its IEM mixes. “It’s principally set it and overlook it,” defined Revell. “The band members will not be choosy and we often get it dialed in earlier than the present so we don’t have to make additional changes.”

British Music Embassy Returns to SXSW

Keeping issues light-weight, Revell makes full use of the inner channel processing out there, eschewing use of an outdoor plug-in server. “Our drummer is among the vocalists, which creates plenty of points since you need to pick the vocals you need with out choosing up all the encircling drum sounds,” he defined. “The Source Expander is phenomenal for serving to with that and never making the opening and shutting of the drum gates audible.”

For results, Revell makes use of the complete palette to emulate the band’s studio recordings. “When I used to be constructing the present file, I arrange 16 FX buses,” he recalled. “I take advantage of refrain, reverb, and saturator for guitars. I even have reverb, refrain and two totally different delays for vocal channels. Sometimes I’ll add some saturation for the bass as nicely. Having all of those results built-in permits me to be artistic, and I can use the mixer as an instrument—as a result of I’m performing, too.”

World News

British Music Embassy Returns to SXSW

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The British Music Embassy stage at SxSW sported a Bowers & Wilkins P.A. and Allen & Heath dLive consoles.
The British Music Embassy stage at SxSW sported a Bowers & Wilkins P.A. and Allen & Heath dLive consoles.

Austin, TX (April 5, 2023)—South by Southwest is at all times an thrilling time, and with the primary correctly post-pandemic version held this spring, the British Music Embassy stage was again in enterprise, internet hosting up-and-coming UK artists. In all, greater than 50 acts, together with Venbee, Sports Team, Robocobra Quartet, Sans Soucis and Sipho took the stage to tear it up.

While high-end audiophile model Bowers & Wilkins won’t be the primary loudspeaker firm to come back to thoughts in the event you have been requested to guess what P.A. was used, it’s nonetheless what that they had available, with a specifically scaled-up system that packed a wallop for the 1000’s that attended reveals there over the course of the pageant.

Chicago’s Metro Club Dives into New Desks

Meanwhile, at entrance of home, bands have been blended on an Allen & Heath dLive S5000 floor, paired with a DM0 MixRack. That console fed right into a continuity system, powered by a compact CTi1500 console and DM64 MixRack dealing with the varied PA feeds and Shure wi-fi microphones for hosts and presenters.

By the stage, monitor wedges and IEM mixes have been managed from one other dLive S5000 floor with its personal DM64, offering 128 channels of unbiased processing and 64 totally configurable buses.

“I like mixing on dLive,” mentioned Jez Dabbs, home engineer on the BME stage. “It’s my desk of selection again dwelling; it makes my life so much simpler once I present as much as a venue like this and I do know I’ll have all of the instruments I would like.”

Meanwhile, Allen & Heath consoles may very well be discovered at a number of different venues round SXSW – together with a dLive C1500 on the White Claw Shore Club, an Avantis at Sellers Underground, SQ on the Mohawk membership, and a number of analog ZED and GL consoles peppered all through.

World News

British Music Embassy is Set for SXSW 2023

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The British Music Embassy stage at SXSW has long used Allen & Heath dLive desks, like the one seen here tackling monitors durin last year's edition.
The British Music Embassy stage at SXSW has lengthy used Allen & Heath dLive desks, just like the one seen right here tackling screens durin final 12 months’s version.

Austin, TX (March 7, 2023)—South by Southwest rolls into Austin, Texas on Friday, kicking off 10 days of music, tech, movie, training and tradition, a lot because it has since 1987. The annual convocation of cool attracts industries and acts from around the globe, and in a case of supporting a few of their very own, UK-based stay sound producer Allen & Heath can have a pair of consoles on the British Music Embassy stage, a venue for up-and-coming UK music stars.

There, two flagship dLive S5000 surfaces will probably be put to make use of tackling entrance of home and monitor mixing. Each floor will probably be paired with its personal DM64 MixRack, that includes 128 channels of enter processing and 64 configurable buses. Inputs from the stage will probably be fed right into a DX32 modular stagebox, geared up with PRIME enter modules. Allen & Heath’s proprietary gigaACE community audio protocol will deal with the digital break up between the 2 consoles, in addition to shared preamp management. Aside from showcasing up-and-coming bands, the BME stage can even host multimedia occasions that includes experimental audiovisual performances.

It’s not the one venue in Austin that can have A&H desks available, nevertheless; throughout the road, the Sellers Underground stage will sport a 64-channel Allen & Heath Avantis console, together with a GX4816 distant stagebox.

“SXSW is at all times a spotlight of our 12 months and an opportunity to actually join with up-and-coming artists, touring engineers and music followers from each style conceivable,” defined Allen & Heath USA advertising director Jeff Hawley. “It appears to be like like we’ll be stepping up our presence once more for 2023, with advance reviews of elevated dLive, Avantis, SQ, Qu and ZED deployments throughout Austin. Based on the optimistic response we had in previous years round every day video reviews from the present, we’ll even be persevering with the pattern this 12 months and including much more live-streamed backstage and behind-the-scenes content material.”

World News

Factory Sound Outfits New Melbourne Performing Arts Center

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Factory Sound installed a sizable Nexo Geo system at Melbourne, Australia's Geode Centre.
Factory Sound put in a large Nexo Geo system at Melbourne, Australia’s Geode Centre.

Melbourne, Australia (March 2, 2023)—The Geode Centre is a brand new performing arts facility positioned on the campus of Melbourne’s St Peter’s College; designed by worldwide theatre consultancy Schuler Shook, it options quite a lot of pro-level AV expertise options designed and built-in by native provider/installer Factory Sound.

Working carefully with St Peter’s College, the group at Factory Sound was introduced in early inside the design course of to create a technical roadmap for the challenge. Factory Sound AV installer and programmer Phil Rowbotham defined, “The temporary was for a high-spec, absolutely controllable professional-grade theatre that may be easy and straightforward to make use of for non-technical operators like lecturers working their very own shows, with out shedding any of the complexity that any person utilizing a full-spec theatre would anticipate.”

The FOH combine space facilities round an Allen & Heath dLive C3500 console with a CDM48 stage field; further stage packing containers are on-hand for use as wanted. For miking, the power owns 16 channels of Shure QLX-D wi-fi. Everything that the mics seize and that the desk mixes is finally heard by way of a large Nexo GEO M12 line array system.

Nexo ePS Installation Loudspeakers Launched

The Nexo system on the Geode Centre options left and proper hangs of a half-dozen GEO M1210s flown with a pair of MSUB18s, Nexo ID24s alongside the entrance of the stage for entrance fills and amplification, and processing from Nexo’s NXAMPMk2 powered controllers.

“The Nexo system was particularly chosen for its capacity to swimsuit each function that the room requires,” stated Rowbotham. “That means intelligibility for speech and school-based capabilities like assemblies, proper via to the complete dynamic vary that you’d anticipate with a high-dynamic rock band on stage. It actually does tick all of the packing containers.”

The Geode Centre is the center half of a bigger enlargement program for the faculty—a three-pronged effort that has seen it additionally construct an arts studying constructing close by with a recording studio and rehearsal areas for music, drama, dance and extra, all of which may be tied to the Geode Centre by way of Dante for distant recording. The third half would be the building of a three-basketball court docket gymnasium.

World News

Chicago’s Metro Club Dives into New Desks

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Chicago's long-running Metro Club recently upgraded its in-house concert sound audio system, first with the PA and more recently with a pair of new consoles for FOH and monitors.
Chicago’s long-running Metro Club recently upgraded its in-house concert sound audio system, first with the PA and more recently with a pair of new consoles for FOH and monitors.

Chicago, IL (February 16, 2023)—Over its four-decade history, the Metro Club in Chicago has gone through thousands of acts, hundreds of engineers and a fair amount of live sound gear, too. Since the pandemic began to cool off, the venue’s hosted acts like Metallica, Green Day, and Fall Out Boy, all of which got to perform through a new PA installed during lockdown. That audio upgrade highlighted a need to refresh the club’s console situation, and now that, too, has been rectified.

“In 2021, we changed everything about the PA—except the actual audio consoles,” recalled installer John Wagner of Ayre Productions. “They inquired about Allen & Heath’s dLive platform, so we set them up with a demo.” The team eventually decided to purchase two dual-screen dLive C3500 surfaces, along with a pair of CDM48 MixRacks. Both systems are each equipped with AES output cards, which allow them to feed the venue’s amplifiers using digital AES/EBU signals.

Tour Ready to Suckerpunch Crowd

“We’re a small venue that hosts a lot of big acts,” explained Ben Gordon, the Metro Club monitor engineer, “so we’re always trying to minimize our footprint without sacrificing functionality. dLive hit all the marks for us.” Justin Yates, who runs front of house, added, “We get a lot of guest engineers, some of whom aren’t familiar with digital consoles. With dLive, it’s easy to get them up to speed and mixing a show in a couple of minutes. Guest engineers are really excited to see the dLive consoles; even the folks who bring in their own console are curious and want to play around with a dLive.”

World News

Providing Sweet Sounds from Monitorworld

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Engineer Daniela Seggewiss mixes Sweet's monitors on an Allen & Heath SQ-5 console.
Engineer Daniela Seggewiss mixes Sweet’s monitors on an Allen & Heath SQ-5 console.

New York, NY (January 26, 2023)—Even after 50 years and 35 million albums sold, Sweet continues to lay down the rock and roll live. The band’s longtime fans have been joined by new generations of followers in recent years, thanks to staples like “The Ballroom Blitz” and “Fox on the Run” turning up in Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy films. Answering demand, the group still does fly dates internationally, and engineer Daniela Seggewiss has been along for the ride, tackling Sweet’s monitors since 2014.

Seggewiss handles those mix duties on an Allen & Heath SQ-5 console. “The first consideration for me when planning to buy a console was the size and weight, as I needed the setup to be able to fly,” she said. “As a monitor engineer, I also need a good number of outputs, and the SQ5 with a DX168 (stagebox) provides me with 32 In/20 Out in an incredibly small setup.” The SQ-5 and DX168 stagebox both fit together in her iM2950 Pelican Storm Case, keeping things compact and below the weight limit for most major airlines.

Allen & Heath Packs More Features into Custom Control V1.3

Seggewiss also opted for the SQ in part due to the dedicated MIX buttons in the master section that control which bus the faders send to, as well as the customizable fader layout. “The fact that I can change the surface layout to anything I need is especially important when using a small console,” she said. “I need to be able to have the most important channels always at my fingertips to make quick adjustments without having to look at the console for too long.”

Seggewiss knows that the band is happy with their mixes—simply because no news is good news. “The best feedback I get from the band is nothing at all,” she explained.

World News

Allen & Heath Packs More Features into Custom Control V1.3

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Custom Control V1.3 brings a host of new features to the customizable, cross-platform control app.
Custom Control V1.3 brings a host of new features to the customizable, cross-platform control app.

New York, NY (January 25, 2023)—With the release of Custom Control V1.3 ahead of ISE, Allen & Heath has issued a major update to its app used for controlling AHM, dLive, and Avantis installed audio systems.

Under the new update, multiple AHM, Avantis, and dLive units can now be controlled from a single user interface. There’s also a bevy of useful new widgets including date and time, and horizontal faders and meters; control of LED bars on the CC-7 and CC-10 touch panels; TCP/UDP messages for control of third-party equipment; and new resource packs with custom images for GUI design.

Along with the new features is a revised GUI that is updated with an eye towards customization, as it now offers custom color palettes; object grouping; options to lock the aspect ratio, position, and dimensions of control widgets; transparency setting for images; and more.

Taking Audio to the Max

While the cross-platform control app now sports new features, it remains available for iOS, Android, Windows and Mac; is accordingly BYOD friendly, and still offers optional password protection.

The app will be on display at ISE 2023 alongside Allen & Heath’s full suite of audio installation solutions, including the AHM series of audio matrix processors and a range of install-focused hardware controllers.

World News

Taking Audio to the Max

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Audio engineer Kyle Chirnside mixed FOH on an Allen & Heath SQ console for artist Max Schneider's fall tour.
Audio engineer Kyle Chirnside mixed FOH on an Allen & Heath SQ console for artist Max Schneider’s fall tour.

New York, NY (January 5, 2023)—Actor-turned-pop artist Max Schneider, a.k.a MAX, hit the road this past fall for a tour that saw him playing in a variety of venues across the U.S. Along for the ride was audio engineer Kyle Chirnside, who mixed FOH. While the tour carried FOH and monitor desks, there was no monitor engineer at stageside.

The dual Allen & Heath SQ setup centered around 48-channel SQ-5 consoles at both the front of house and monitor positions, along with a DX168 16-input stagebox for expanded I/O. “I wanted something small and compact,” said Chirnside. “I don’t need any external FX or plug-ins; I use the built-in processing of the SQ. We also will have to fly during this tour, so I kept everything under 50 pounds to meet the requirements for air travel.”

George Thorogood and The Destroyers Hang Tough with dLive

Even with a separate monitor console, there was no need for a dedicated monitor engineer on the tour as each of the performers mixed their own IEMs through the wireless SQ4YOU application. “We basically have a ‘ghost’ monitor engineer,” joked Chirnside. While Chirnside kept an iPad near his desk in order to make adjustments as needed to the monitor SQ-5, it was only there as a contingency plan.

Chirnside used the scenes function on SQ to create automations, allowing him to easily recall desired parameters and levels for each song that were fired off with SoftKeys, and made use of the desk’s built-in SQ-Drive function, which allows users to record either 2-channel stereo or up to 32 channels of multitrack directly to an external USB hard drive. “It’s been awesome that I can do multitrack or main LR mix to my USB thumbdrive,” he said. “I can hand off those recordings to the tour videographer, or even use them for a virtual soundcheck to tune the P.A. – it’s been a super game-changer for me.”

World News

George Thorogood and The Destroyers Hang Tough with dLive

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At the Ryman in Nashville, monitor engineer Colten Hyten checks out his Allen & Heath dLive S5000 surface at stageside.
At the Ryman in Nashville, monitor engineer Colten Hyten checks out his Allen & Heath dLive S5000 surface at stageside.

New York, NY (December 5, 2022)—Catching George Thorogood and The Destroyers in concert is never anything less than a blast. While the blues rock legend may have a tough-guy-with-a-guitar persona thanks to hits like “Bad to the Bone,” “I Drink Alone” and “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer,” Thorogood is first and foremost an entertainer who leaves it all on the stage night after night. And there’s a lot of nights—the production is a well-oiled touring machine, as everyone knows their role like the backs of their hands. Case in point: sound engineer Jeff Pitt of production company 242 Concepts has been mixing the act for nearly a quarter century.

When it came time to upgrade the band’s touring audio consoles, Pitt and monitor engineer Colten Hyten went through several options before opting for Allen & Heath’s dLive platform during a hands-on demo. “We spent a week going through about 25 iterations of dLive surfaces, mix engines, and expanders,” recounted Hyten. “That’s what really attracted us to dLive—the fact that there are so many different hardware configuration possibilities, without sacrificing any processing power.”

The current tour is being mixed on two dLive S5000 surfaces, one at front of house and one at monitors, mixed by Hyten. Each surface is paired with its own DM0 MixRack to manage their respective 128 channels of 96 kHz processing, and two gigaACE cards handle the digital split between the systems. Off the monitor console’s DM0, Hyten connects multiple DX168 portable I/O boxes on the stage to keep the mic preamps closer to the performers. A DX012 expander adds a dozen more line outputs for the band’s in-ear monitors. “We’ve eliminated so much analog cabling,” remarked Hyten. “That’s been a huge thing for us, since Cat 5e cables are so easy to run and simple to replace if there is ever a continuity issue.”

Live Sound Showcase: Not Just Good; Thorogood

“Another feature we like is the ABCD Preamp option,” remarked Pitt. The ABCD feature on dLive allows for the input source of a particular channel strip to be instantly between four different options, allowing for ast changeover to a backup mic or an alternate wireless system as needed. “If our main RF mic goes down, we have a one-touch solution that places our backup right in the same line, so we don’t have to move channels or remix anything.”

Pitt is also a fan of the recently added RTA overlay on channel equalizers: “It lets you really see the frequency response on an individual channel, getting instant visual feedback on what you’re changing.”

The current tour has put the dLive system through some taxing conditions, but Hyten was pleased with how the consoles have held up. “We opened a big show in Phoenix, where it hit about 109 degrees Fahrenheit,” he recalled. “Some other groups had their equipment shutting down and failing, but the dLives were rock solid.”