Grammy award-winning Argentinian performer, Coti, recently completed a 20-date tour of Spain, culminating in a performance at the Gexto Sound Festival, with Allen & Heath‘s compact dLive Wings system handling monitor duties.
Coti Sorokin is one of the best-known artists, songwriters and producers in the Spanish speaking world, with numerous Platinum discs to his name. For Coti’s latest Spanish tour, monitor engineer, Alejandro Blanco opted for his very own highly portable mixing system, comprising a dLive C1500 19-inch surface fitted with a WavesV3 card for multitrack recording and a DM32 MixRack, fitted with a Dante card, a superMADI card for digital splits and AES10 card, for running wedge monitors and side fills.
“dLive is the best sounding console on the market right now and in my opinion, there’s no other mixer that offers the capabilities of dLive, without the need of third-party plugins or servers – the power and quality of the DEEP plugins is impressive,” explains Blanco. “Apart from the quality, weight and size is very important and it now only takes 15 minutes or less to set everything up, which is perfect for festivals with quick changeovers.”
The show required in-ear mixes for Coti and his violinist, keyboard player and backing vocalist, plus four wedge monitors and side fills. As such, a portable DX168 expander provided additional I/O onstage. Blanco comments, “I run dLive Director and load my iPad with the MixPad app to facilitate soundchecks. As we don’t carry a full production, every show has a different monitor mix, so having the ability to roam the stage is fundamental – particularly when you work with an artist who doesn’t perform soundchecks. It’s essential that I’m able to hear what Coti hears, in order to create the perfect mix for him.”
Introduced in dLive’s V1.8 firmware update, Blanco utilises MCAs in conjunction with DCA spills, enabling full and simple control over his IEM’s. Blanco adds, “As a small ‘trick’ on my C1500, I have all my individual channels grouped into different DCA’s. This means that I can immediately access the member channels I need via DCA Spills and access each mix through the Softkeys. MCA’s are also perfect for mixing the artists IEM’s.”
Blanco also made extensive use of dLive’s Dyn8 processor for dynamic EQ and multiband compression, adding, “Dyn8 is a total live saver for vocals, it’s always clear and on point, no matter if the singer sings softly, shouts or cups the mic. The combination of Dyn8 and the Opto compressor, which I place on each of my outputs, is great and provides this sweet and balanced sound. The musicians have even said how happy they are with their mixes now.”
