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PM/sound engineer delivering the live mix for the Jason Lovins Band in concert on an Allen & Heath Avantis mix surface.

Allen & Heath Avantis For Jason Lovins Band On The Road

PM/sound engineer Chris Music employs the mix system to serve the live sound needs of the independent Christian rock group that's on the road about 40 weeks each year.

Jason Lovins Band, an independent Christian rock group based out of Kentucky that’s been touring consistently in houses of worship and college campus ministries since its formation in 2001, is employing an Allen & Heath Avantis mix system at the heart of its live sound approach.

“We’ve loved using the Avantis,” says production manager and sound engineer Chris Music, noting that the band is on the road for about 40 weeks a year. “We used to have some external plugins included with our touring rig, but the Avantis’ dPack upgrade has eliminated the need for most of those.”

He points to the dPack plugin package with DEEP processing functions that comes from the brand’s flagship dLive series: “The dPack is where the Avantis shines, for sure — especially the analog compressor models. I like compressors that can give a channel some character to make it sit differently in the mix.”

Music still keeps a 128-channel Waves card installed in Avantis, both to run some specific plugins off a server and to run playback tracks off a computer for virtual soundcheck. Also onboard is an Allen & Heath GX4816 stagebox for remote I/O providing 48 mic preamps and 16 line outputs, as well as an additional DX168 expander daisy-chained off the main stagebox that Music uses to cleanly connect all drum mics with minimal cabling.

Music has also seen an improvement to his workflow. “I love the way you can lay out channels flexibly across the many available layers,” he notes. “I don’t like to fit everything on one layer, I like to have things organized so I can page through and access what I need.”

For the band’s monitors, Music sets up a router and multiple iPads running a mix of the free Avantis OneMix and MixPad applications, allowing all members to have full control over their own AUX output without needing a dedicated monitor engineer. “The band likes to be super hands-on,” he concludes. “Having them control their own mixes makes things easy for me.”

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