California band Of Mice & Men, recently out in support of Linkin Park on the European leg of the Hunting Party arena tour, were mixed with Allen & Heath GLD-80 consoles at both front of house and monitors.
It was the first experience of using GLD for engineers Dave Nutbrown (front of house) and Ian “Squid” Walsh (monitors), who both needed a mix solution that could handle larger arena shows while keeping to a compact footprint.
A GLD-80 connected via Cat-5 to AR2412 and AR84 AudioRacks provided 32 XLR inputs for stage sources and delivered five in-ear mixes, as well as mixes to side fills and a pair of center wedges.
The consoles were fitted with Dante cards, and mic preamp signals were split digitally via Dante networking over Cat-5 to front of house. The analog gain was set at the start of the tour, with the engineers using the mixers’ digital trim (+/- 24 dB) to independently make adjustments during the shows.
‘’It’s really easy to use,” Walsh notes. “It’s such a small rig, we were in and out of there so fast.”
Nutbrown adds, “We’re happy with it—it’s a good, all round rock ‘n’ roll board. Our show finishes at 8 o’ clock. I carry it back to the bus at 8.30 and at 8.45 I’m in the bar. What can I tell you?”
Find out further details from both engineers in the following video.