Finnish bluegrass rockers Steve ‘N’ Seagulls, have recently hit the UK for a series of shows supporting their third studio album ‘Grainsville’ – released earlier this year – while accompanied by an Allen & Heath dLive Wings system.
The band’s set-up comprises a dLive C1500 surface (fitted with a Waves V3 card, which is used for multitrack recording, virtual soundchecks and running plugins during live shows), an IP8 remote controller and a CDM32 MixRack.
The Wings set-up was chosen due to the customization options and its size – which is perfect for flying. Front of house engineer, Antti Laitila, explains “Steve ‘n’ Seagulls tour around the world all the time, so I was looking for a compact and good sounding console for fly-dates. I’d heard a lot of great things about the dLive-series from my colleagues, so I decided to give it a try.”
He continues, “Pete Kaltala from Allen & Heath’s Finnish distributor, F-Pro, hooked me up with the demo set and from the very first show I was blown away by the sound quality and punch that dLive delivered. The band had never sounded so good. I love the fact that I can customize the surface the way I want and with the IP8 attached, I have all the control that I need to be able to focus on mixing without jumping between different layers and menus during the show.”
The single surface set-up is used to handle both front of house and the musicians IEM mixes. The IP8 is connected to the surface, providing an additional bank of 8 faders for further hands-on control, while the CDM32 is situated on stage for all analog I/O.
The band are well-known for their hard rock and metal covers and became increasingly popular in 2014 with a series of YouTube videos, the most famous being their cover of ‘Thunderstruck’ by AC/DC, which received over 72 million views.
dLive’s DEEP processing and Dyn8 engine were another factor in the overall decision to use the system.
Laitila adds “Steve ‘n’ Seagulls have a large variety of different instruments and four vocals, so trying to fit everything together can be a bit challenging. The Dyn8 multiband dynamic processor is my favorite tool when controlling the dynamics of a blazing banjo or thunderous accordion. The variety and quality of different processors in dLive is amazing. Just being able to choose from the many different compressors gives you a powerful toolset.”
After six tour dates with F-Pro´s demo set-up, Laitila and the band enjoyed it so much that they decided to purchase the full system, commenting “After a few shows in different types of venues, I made the decision to purchase the system and I couldn’t be happier. The band members have also noticed a positive change in their IEM’s and describe the sound as being more open now compared to the old set-up.”
