The late summer six-week U.S. tour by American five-piece metalcore band Beartooth, founded by lead vocalist Caleb Shomo in 2012, saw Shomo continuing to mix the band’s monitors from the stage, with he and front of house engineer Danny Harvey opting for a dual Allen & Heath dLive mix system approach supplied by Illinois-based V2 Productions.
Harvey, who traveled from the UK to work on the tour, employed a 28-fader dLive S5000 surface and DM48 MixRack complemented with a Waves V3 card, while Shomo, who also is the recording engineer for the band, utilizing a compact 12-fader dLive C1500 surface and DM48 MixRack. In between delivering his vocal lines, he controls five stereo in-ear monitor mixes, side fills and two pairs of stage monitors from his position on the center of the stage.
“After mixing the Beartooth albums on some of the world’s best consoles, my requirements and expectations for mixing in-ears have become almost impossibly high,” Shomo says. “The dLive system has been a game-changer. The preamps are completely transparent and the built-in components give me all the analog feel I need without the hassle of outboard. I’ve never felt so confident creating mixes that make everyone on stage want to melt face night after night.”
“All the dLive systems sound great — before this tour I was on the C1500 at front of house, but having the extra faders and therefore control feels particularly great,” Harvey adds. “With the inbuilt processing, I can control it how I like and achieve the power and punch I’m looking for. Beartooth are loud rock ‘n’ roll band so need to be mixed loud and heavy, and the dLive makes this easy.”
