After an 18-year hiatus, Alabama’s famed heavy rock and metal Furnace Fest recently returned at the Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham to present 90 bands across three stages, with acts such as August Burns Red, ERRA, Fit for a King, Mayday Parade, Motionless in White, and Underøath all supported with Allen & Heath consoles at front of house.
A number of compact dLive C1500 surfaces and an SQ-5 were put to work over the course of the three-day festival. “I’ve been touring with dLive since 2017 and it’s been awesome watching the platform grow and sport more and more new features in that time,” notes FOH engineer Chris Pollock (August Burns Red, ERRA). “Most recently with the V1.9 update, I’m already taking advantage of a lot of these new features. The RTA functionality is awesome for quickly pinpointing problem frequencies, and Source Expander has made a world of difference cleaning up my vocal mics.
“Most impressive of all though is the Bus compressor. It’s so gooey and punchy, I’m really excited about the energy it brings to my mixes. I can’t wait to hear what A&H comes up with next.”
Allen & Heath recently announced dLive V1.9, the largest firmware release in the history of the flagship dLive mixing system. The free update incorporates feedback from audio engineers across live sound, recording, streaming and installation markets with additions that include new RTA and sonogram tools, new DEEP expander and compressor models, a 12-band PEQ option for mixes, and Sennheiser wireless integration.
“It was great to see dLive bring brought in with the festival headliners,” adds Kevin Duthu, Business Unit Lead/Pro User Group, HWPco. “All of the engineers had great things say about the platform and specifically the 1.9 firmware. The ease of setup that the C1500 brings to a festival atmosphere allows a quick in and out of FOH without having to rearrange the entire tent—not to mention not having to bring an entire extra server of plugins, because they’re right in the desk! The best mixes of the day were without a doubt on Allen and Heath. It sounded like a blanket was taken off the PA when both SQ and dLive fired up.”
