German singer, Mine, recently staged a special orchestral concert produced with an Allen & Heath dLive S Class mixing system as the central hub for the monitor mix and signal routing.
The sold-out concert took place in Huxleys Neue Welt music club in Berlin. The show featured on stage, Mine’s band, a 12-piece orchestra, a 15-voice choir, DJs plus various guest vocalists and rappers.
With over 90 microphones and inputs, Dennis Kopacz, technical director of the show, chose a dLive S5000 surface and DM48 MixRack expanded to 108 inputs to manage mixing and routing.
“The S5000 is the heart of the whole production and is not only used as a monitor desk but also for routing the signals via MADI to the front of house desk and the Pro Tools rig, which records the whole show,” explains Kopacz. “Since space is tight, we needed a compact desk which is still able to handle lots of inputs and mixes, and allows complex routings. dLive delivers in every aspect.”
Recording orchestral instruments on the crowded stage is another challenging topic for Kopacz since no acoustic separation could be used. All string instruments are mic‘ed separately by ATM350 microphones from Audio-Technica which have some key advantages for Kopacz:
“Not only do the ATM350 sound great on all kind of string instruments but they are also very easy to handle by classical musicians who don’t have much experience in using microphones.”
Kopacz has previously used dLive for other big music and TV productions, including the German TV show, Sing My Song, and the unplugged show of Austrian singer, Andreas Gabalier.
“dLive is my first choice when I need to route a huge number of signals in an easy but flexible way. New features, like DCA spill, let me also handle large mixes on a relatively small surface. Also, the system is absolutely reliable and simply sounds very good,” Kopacz continues. “Last but not least, the user interface is laid out very well and it’s easy to use; even engineers who have never worked on the desk before can get up to speed in no time and deliver great mixes.”
