On the recent tour by heavy rock band In This Moment, production manager and front of house engineer Brian Hardaswick employed an Allen & Heath dLive mix system, including an S5000 control surface joined by a DM64 MixRack offering 64 mic preamps, 32 line outputs and a 128-channel 96 kHz FPGA processing.
Hardaswick became interested in the dLive series in early 2020: “I hit up Sound Image and they had them in stock, so I decided to try out mixing with some multitracks,” he recounts. “I fell in love with it right away.”
“I was blown away by the console – how true the FX are, how responsive the gate and compression is,” he continues. “Every little nuance and every little change I make is audible. I just sat down at the controls, and it made sense right out of the gate. It’s amazing that the fader layout is fully customizable with a simple drag-and-drop interface.”
Unfortunately, the ensuing pandemic prevented hime from taking the console out on the road. “I ended up going to our rehearsal space twice a week for six to eight hours just to practice mixing by myself on a PA,” explains Hardaswick, who also has a 128-channel WAVES3 module installed, which he uses for multitracking and virtual soundcheck with a computer. “The virtual soundcheck feature is an incredible tool. I love how easy it is to switch back and forth between playback and live mixing – especially at festivals when I don’t have much time to dial things in.”
In This Moment lead vocalist Maria Brink poses a unique challenge as her live performances involve use of a headworn microphone and lots of movement through noisy crowds. “The dLive’s DYN8 processor is huge for her, because there’s a lot of noise I need to take out — but I don’t want to remove anything important from her actual performance,” Hardaswick says. The DYN8’s DEEP multiband compressor and dynamic EQ allow for the plugins to only be active in affecting the signal when particular thresholds are hit at specific frequencies. “Her vocals have so much diversity. Sometimes she screams, sometimes she whispers, and I have to keep all that audible. DYN8 allows me to pull certain frequencies during screaming vocals, but also to emphasize frequencies when she’s whispering to make it feel more present and ‘in-your-face.’”
Hardaswick also points to the built-in parallel compression available on every input and mix processing channel on dLive. “I used to have to burn my groups to get a compressor wet/dry mix,” he concludes. “It’s great that I don’t need a bunch of outboard gear — everything I need is right there.”
