Belgian electro rock band, Soulwax, has embarked on a summer tour of Europe with Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing systems and a ME personal monitoring system serving FOH and monitors, as well as recording the shows.
Band members sought a ‘20th century sound’ by incorporating several vintage Trident Fleximix consoles onstage for pre-mixing. For this, FOH engineer, Hugo Scholten, needed a system that could manage up to 128 input channels to blend the vintage stems with any of the individual mic/line channels for the final FOH mix. Virtual soundcheck capability and the option to add Waves plug-ins, were also required at FOH, as well as a digital mic preamp split between Monitors and FOH, and a separate integrated system providing hands-on personal monitoring for the artists.
Supplied by Ampco Flashlight Rental – along with all of the stage, monitor and FOH production equipment – the dLive systems comprise an S7000 Control Surface with DM32 MixRack at FOH with Waves and Madi, including virtual soundcheck and SoundGrid, and an S5000 with DM64 and two additional DX32 expander racks with a 128 input split and recording via Madi and Waves. Additionally, each musician and technician is provided with their own ME-1 minimixer to manage their own personal monitor mix, linked via the ME-U hub.
‘In a full mix involving dozens of channels, including three drum kits, I’m enjoying the massive headroom and clarity dLive offers’ says FOH and system engineer, Hugo Scholten. The flexible strip layout allows me to put all my audio subgroups in the centre bank with DCAs underneath. I also really like using the de-Esser to help dilute the triple drumkit spill on the vocal mic. The networking options give me loads of freedom, so I am able to use Waves SoundGrid for buss processing and Madi for splits,.’
‘I love the practicality and ease of workflow on the dLive surface, which I picked up really quickly,’ he adds. ‘Everything is very easy to find, and the sound quality is equal to consoles costing three times as much,’ says monitor engineer, Marc ‘Mackie’ De Vulder. ‘I provide 40 auxes as stem mixes to the ME-1s, so that each musician can select their own IEM mix. Really early on in the tour, the musicians commented on the clarity and separation of their mixes. Everyone is extremely happy.’
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