R&B artist and songwriter Musiq Soulchild (aka Taalib Johnson) is currently engaged in a US tour in support of his seventh album, Life on Earth, with audio production provided by Digital World Live. The Atlanta-based live sound training company is using an Allen & Heath dLive S7000 Surface and DM48 MixRack for FOH, and a dLive S5000 Surface with DM64 MixRack for monitors.
Prior to the tour, Musiq had advised Digital World Live’s Harry Timothee – also Musiq’s Production Manager – that he wanted a ‘new sound’, one that would bring a ‘prestige’ quality to his performances. ‘So we researched new gear starting with the dLive,’ Timothee recalls. ‘After a few days of rehearsal, everyone was blown away.’
Digital World Live also added a Shure wireless microphone system with Dante output. ‘Now, with the dLive’s Dante card, we’ve got a digital signal throughout tjhe entire system.’
Tonderick Watkins mixes Musiq’s FOH on the S7000 Surface, noting that, as an R&B singer, Musiq’s ballads often feature softer, falsetto vocals requiring a higher gain setting with an accompanying increase in hiss noise: ‘With the dLive, we’re running at 96/24 and we didn’t get the noise.’
Timothee mixes in-ear and side-fill monitors on the S5000 Surface. He uses several dLive creative tools on vocals including ADT and a tube preamp emulator, and also a multi-band compressor on drums. He uses an Allen & Heath ME-1 Personal Mixer to for Musiq and the band useseveral talk-back mics for ques.
Both engineers use scenes to set up the dLive for different songs – Timothee regards the dLive’s scenes as more flexible and intuitive than the ‘snapshots’ on their previous digital mixer. Both engineers also use dLive layers to manage the show’s 48 mics, direct feeds and prerecorded tracks. They record Musiq’s performances to Tracks Live and Studio One set-ups and play them back during rehearsals using dLive’s virtual soundcheck. Musiq’s musicians also use the recordings to update their show files during free time.
‘We’ve always wanted Musiq’s sound to be in the same class as a pop or rock artist,’ Timothee says. ‘And after our first show with the dLive at Wolf Creek in Atlanta, Musiq sais, ‘Hey, man, this is the sound I want. It’s crispy, clear and pristine. That is the board I want to go with’.’
