Swedish PA company Parashoot supported the recent European tour by Norwegian singer-songwriter Ane Brun with an Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system as well as A&H ME personal monitoring systems.
Specifically, Parashoot deployed an iLive-T112 system to handle both FOH and monitors, joined by xDR-16 I/O expander racks positioned stage left and stage right, along with an iDR-16 MixRack.
Parashoot, which has worked with Ane Brun since 2007, served a line-up comprised of two drum kits with open miking, an upright bass with FX pedals, various guitars, two keyboards, backing vocalists, and Brun.
All musicians except one were on in-ear monitors working with ME personal mixing systems. Parashoot provided five ME-1 personal mixers, with an ME-U hub delivering power and distribution on stage.
“I took the ME-1s down to rehearsals and everyone was thrilled with them,” notes Parashoot sound engineer and owner Oscar Söderlund. “The layout is easy, you can pan and it’s a sleek looking tool.”
As Söderlund was also managing monitors from FOH, the ME-1s helped take the stress out of soundcheck and the show so he could focus on the PA and Brun’s mix. He discovered Allen & Heath in 2008 when a friend suggested he try iLive, which resulted in him investing in an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T112 system. The company now owns a flexible hire stock, including three iLive-T112 surfaces, two iLive-R72 surfaces and four MixRacks, which are interchangeable systems.
“When I first toured with iLive, the feeling was great,” he states. :You pull up the fader and it sounds so different to what I had heard before with other consoles, it’s so natural – I fell in love. What struck me was the FX, they are the best emulations in the digital console business. I was dealing with 28-inch bass drums with no padding, and I found I could really extend the reverbs in my mix and create great landscapes.”
“It’s not often that you do something and think I couldn’t have done that any better. Would it have been better with another console? No, I’d always go back to A&H. It’s been the best five years of my life,” he concludes.