The annual Heat Latin Music Awards airing on the HTV cable channel in early June will see FOH engineer Gabriel Cruz and monitor engineer JV Olivier using the Waves eMotion LV1 Live Mixer.

‘The eMotion LV1 is perfect for bringing my studio sound to a live environment,’ Cruz says. ‘It offers me plenty of routing and processing options, all at 96kHz. And it has excellent preamps that let me drive them enough to get the colour I am looking for in my final mix. Between that and the integrated workflow with Waves plug-ins, I can spend less time fixing problems and more time doing creative mixing.

‘The LV1’s quick, easy set-up is also most impressive. I have my LV1 installed directly in a Circle Three Designs case, which gives me a 3U rack space with one DSPro StageGrid 1000 for local I/O, a Waves Axis One and a SoundGrid Extreme Server-C, all together in a low-weight, easy-to-deploy set-up.

‘When it comes to networking, I have a Waves SoundGrid network sharing multiple SoundGrid devices, allowing us to have shared talkbacks, wedges and side fills between two stage monitor mixers and one FOH, plus sharing to broadcast through Madi,’ he continues. ‘The LV1 mixer saves time in soundchecks (monitoring wise) and enables me to easily tweak my mixes with a click at the channel section.’

The integration of Waves plug-ins within the LV1 is a major reason for their choice.

‘Waves plug-ins are a big part of the sound quality I can get with the LV1,’ Cruz confirms. ‘The SSL G-Channel is my go-to channel strip – it provides me with filters and dynamics control that is my starting point. If at that point it doesn’t already sound great, that means I should check the source. I always use the SSL G-Master Buss Compressor on mix groups and as a first master chain. It gives me control over the peaks on group busses and the master bus. The NLS Non-Linear Summer plug-in is excellent for drive and boosting certain elements, like drums routed individually to the NLS bus through a NLS Channel: kicks, snares, toms, hats and ‘AIR,’ each assigned internally through a group, with different drives in order to achieve what I need – punch and fat drums.

‘On my master channel, I use the Abbey Road TG Mastering Chain plug-in. It has everything I need to give my mix that final touch: filters, EQ (M/S) and mid for boosting elements hidden in the mix, and sides to help deliver a much wider and defined stereo image.

‘The LV1’s sound quality is a major draw,’ agrees monitor engineer Olivier. The sound quality, the integrated plug-in workflow, the ease of transportation and set-up, and lots of flexibility with signal routing – were all key factors in choosing this console. Being able to get such a great sound, with almost zero latency and minimum space and transportation requirements – this is of great value to me. I can take my stuff with me virtually everywhere and have it up and running by myself in minutes, with consistency day after day. Converters and preamps sound just right, and how many H-Reverbs is too many anyway?’

Waves plug-ins are an integral part of Olivier’s workflow: ‘The F6 Floating-Band Dynamic EQ and the C6 Multiband Compressor for fixing problems and shaping sounds are winners. Having the option to change attack and release times on each band is nice, and the mid-size option on the F6 is great. I also use the SSL G-Master Buss Compressor for group and mix bus compression; the H-Reverbfor creating a bit more dimension and depth – I will use as many of these as possible, followed by the Renaissance Reverb plug-in – and the L2 Ultramaximizer for making things loud.

‘The combination of the eMotion LV1 with Waves plug-ins is without doubt a powerful and enlightening experience. The system provides you with flexibility, connectivity and creative freedom. It also pushes you to improve many skills within a friendly intuitive environment. That alone enables you to invest your time and effort on mixing – rather than spend all your time tackling problems and fighting an uphill battle for solutions.’

More: www.waves.com