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Alphabeat Fascinated with iLive
Danish pop sensation, Alphabeat, is on tour with Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system managing both monitor and FOH sound. The six-piece are on an extensive tour of Europe to promote their hit-filled debut album, including live dates and TV appearances.
The standard mixing set up is an iDR10 Mixrack and iLive-112 Control Surface on monitors with a digital split to an iDR0 Network Mixrack and iLive-112 Surface at FOH. However, when load-in has been tricky, Pattison has controlled FOH from his laptop, using a Cat5 cable and a wireless router in places where space has been too much of a premium.
Pattison explains: "We arrived at a venue in Norway and there was minimal crew and a tricky spiral staircase load in, so we only brought in Ben's monitor system. I set up my channels on his surface's C and D layers, recalled my channel presets from a USB key, and loaded in a couple of my favourite FX. We ran a network cable to FOH and I operated Ben's desk from my laptop using the iLive Editor software."
One iLive system was used for 6 stereo in-ear mixes, 6 wedge mixes, 5 FX sends and returns, plus a stereo aux mix for FOH. Booker and Pattison used 64 inputs, doubling up channels, to have their own gains as well as independent EQ's.
"Two operators, one desk, and no one spat their dummy! I didn't have any busy messages, and Ben didn't even notice I was doing stuff because I was on a different layer; I was tweaking my stereo mix whilst he was tweaking another - try that on another digital board!" he concludes.
"We first came across iLive at a festival in Cornwall, where it only took 20 minutes to get used to the new work surface," adds monitor engineer, Ben Booker.
The band use 32 inputs, comprising seven vocals, two keyboards, a guitar, bass, drums, plus three channels from a Korg HDR for playback of electronic percussion effects. Pattison also employs two different reverbs - the ADT Doubler for vocals, and sub-harmonic Hypabass on the kick drum and bass synth.
"iLive is an ideal size for what we are doing," explains the band's FOH engineer, Stephen Pattison. "It sounds really good - like an analogue board - and you only need a little EQ. It's slick and easy to use, everything is in front of you, and it's really adaptable. It does what it says on the tin but you can write whatever you like on the tin!"
17th December 2008
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