An Allen & Heath dLive mix system will be deployed for front of house and monitors on the upcoming concert tour by American pop punk artist Maggie Lindemann, who released her debut album Suckerpunch in 2022.
The dLive system is being provided by audio engineer and tour manager George Adrian, who was first introduced to the dLive platform at a music festival. “I was really blown away by the compact form factor,” he recalls. Adrian later began to realize the advantages of owning his own touring desk, with dLive a top contender. After evaluating his options, he landed on a 20-fader dLive C2500 surface and a CDM64 MixRack with 64 mic preamps and 32 line outputs.
He will simultaneously run both front of house and monitors (IEMs) for the tour, taking advantage of the mix platform’s adaptability and processing power. “I try to use minimal compression for in-ear mixes,” he notes, “so that means double-patching some of the inputs and sending a different processed version to the front of house mix.”
He also points to the DEEP plugin package, including the new Dual Threshold Expander introduced in dLive firmware 1.9. “I like it a lot for drums,” he explains. “I use it on basically all my channels.” Adrian also makes use of the DYN8 Dynamic EQ for things like lead vocals and kick drums. “I like to be able to boost certain frequencies only when that frequency crosses a set threshold – and avoid just boosting everything in that signal at that frequency all the time, like you would with a static EQ.”
Adrian adss that Dynamic EQs can help a lot with minimizing feedback as well as minimizing the emphasis of undesirable bleed or spill from the stage or crowd. In the case of vocals, he uses a fast attack to grab and control peaks and then uses the dLive’s OptTronik compressor to add steady compression and balance out the signal.
Adrian also has a Dante card installed in his dLive system for more flexible connectivity and expansion. “Using Dante, I can get audio to and from my Smaart rig, I can record multitracks, and also run Virtual Soundcheck,” he concludes, also noting the importance of dLive’s Virtual Soundcheck functionality. “On this run, we’re gonna have limited time before each performance. We have to get a soundcheck done pretty quickly, and I can even check the IEM mixes without the artists actually playing on-stage.”
Lindemann’s tour begins in March of 2023 with U.S. dates and then moves internationally to Australia and Europe in May.
