American heavy rock band UnderOath are currently on a headline tour of the US, with support from Periphery and Loathe. Since 2019, the band have been mixed by engineer JJ Revell, who also acts as Production Manager.
Revell mixes UnderOath on an Allen & Heath dLive C1500 surface with a DM0 MixRack to handle 128 channels of processing and a GX4816 stagebox. The DM0 connects via Allen & Heath’s proprietary gigaAce protocol to a separate DM48 MixRack close to the stage, which allows a simple digital split with a second C1500 handling monitor mixes.
‘I love the dLive series – I like how modular it is and the ability to use any size control surface with any MixRack,’ says Revell, having downsized from the S5000 surface used on the band’s last tour.
The smaller C1500 fits into a standard 19-inch rackmount case, which comes into play when the band play fly dates in other continents. ‘We’ve done Australia, Europe and soon South America – it’s great that I can bring my console on the plane with me and have that consistency wherever we go.’
Revell says that dLive suits UnderOath’s style of music: ‘Obviously the band is pretty heavy, so it’s good to know that I can still get great sound even when I hit the console with a really powerful signal.’
Beyond basic mixing functionality, Revell makes extensive use of dLive’s internal channel processing. ‘Our drummer is one of the vocalists, which creates a lot of issues since you have to pick out the vocals you want without picking up all the surrounding drum sounds,’ he says. ‘The Source Expander is phenomenal for helping with that and not making the opening and closing of the drum gates audible. It’s great that I don’t have to bring along an external plug-in server to get access to that functionality.’
For effects, Revell attempts to emulate the band’s studio recordings: ‘When I was building the show file, I set up 16 FX buses. I use chorus, reverb, and saturator for guitars. I also have reverb, chorus and two different delays for vocal channels. Sometimes I’ll add some saturation for the bass as well. Having all of these effects built-in allows me to be creative, and I can use the mixer as an instrument – because I’m performing, too.’
Despite the second monitor console, the band does not tour with a dedicated monitor engineer for IEM mixes. ‘It’s basically “set and forget”,’ Revell says. ‘The band members are not picky and we usually get it dialled in before the show so we don’t need to make further adjustments. It makes it really easy for me.’
Following UnderOath’s US tour dates, the band fly to Europe for a festival date at the end of May.
More: www.allen-heath.com
