Among London’s most exclusive live music venues, The Arts Club has installed an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system as part of a significant audio upgrade programme.
Founded in 1863 by Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and Lord Leighton, The Arts Club is a premium members-only venue that attracts a top-end clientele, for live music, art and fashion events, and private parties. Supplied by SSE Audio Group, the new set-up is based around a dLive S5000 surface – with both Dante and AES3 I/O audio networking cards installed – and DM48 MixRack. An Allen & Heath ME-1 personal mixer is also now employed for drum monitoring duties.
‘The mainstays of The Arts Club tech team use dLive systems out on the road, including Jonathan Lewis [Travis FOH] and Dave McDonald [Frank Ocean FOH], so it was an obvious choice for the venue.’ says SSE Audio Group Sales Manager, Richard Watts. ‘The team needed sufficient AES outputs for the LCRS mix and five-way monitor mix – the venue’s L-Acoustics amplification has digital AES3 inputs – so the addition of the networking cards in the dLive makes for a very easy, flexible solution for them.’
‘The flexibility and fast workflow of the dLive system is incredible,’ adds Charles Bidwell, The Arts Club’s head technician, ‘It’s like a hybrid of my favourite features from all my favourite desks – drag-and-drop fader population, great preamps and EQ, a brilliant surface and very versatile patching.
‘When touring engineers – of which we get many at The Arts Club – use it for the first time it becomes familiar instantaneously and I’ve had nothing but good feedback from them. In fact, I like the dLive system so much I purchased my own dLive C1500 surface and CDM32 MixRack for FOH duties on Santan Dave’s UK tour.’
