Supplying sound support for The Pineapple Thief’s ongoing tour of the UK and Europe, Reece Productions are putting its new Allen & Heath dLive mixing system through its paces – including a recent performance at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire in London.
James Reece-Ford, Founder of Reece Productions and an experienced user of A&H products, was happy to add the C2500 control surface to the production company’s portfolio. ‘We’ve been big fans of the ecosystem Allen & Heath have been developing for their live digital consoles,’ he says. ‘The whole console feels like it was designed with me in mind, rather than the console. The sound quality is way beyond my expectations’, he says.
Formed in 1999 by founder and chief songwriter Bruce Soord, The Pineapple Thief’s have sound engineer Simon Baxter at FOH, and it was he who requested the dLive C2500 control surface and a CDM32 mixrack for the tour: ‘I chose the dLive as I needed a small footprint desk, but with the power and flexibility that the dLive provides,’ he says.
Reece-Ford has worked with Steve Eaton, Senior Audio Sales Executive and the audio team at AC Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) for many years, and knew they would be able to provide him with everything he required: ‘Naturally we turned to AC-ET when we decided to invest in the dLIve system. Steve made the process easy as usual, and his personal enthusiasm for the console gave us added confidence in our purchase.’
After being thoroughly impressed with the dLive’s capabilities, the band’s management company, Swex, has booked it again for The Pineapple Thief’s European tour in 2019, which kicks off in February in Firenze, Italy.
‘I loved using the console on tour. The onboard FX are fantastic, the multi band EQ was really useful and I was impressed with the ease of the workflow throughout’, Baxter says. ‘Most of all, the sound quality was fantastic; such a transparent sound and sensitive EQ allowed me to create the mix I wanted to achieve. I loved the desk and stage box combination so much so, I am taking it out again in February.’
