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iLive-T Monitors PJ Harvey on European Tour
Allen & Heath's new iLive-T digital mixing system has just completed a sell out European tour, managing monitors for British rock artist, PJ Harvey. The system was chosen by monitor engineer, Ben Booker, who scooped Total Production magazine's Monitor Engineer of the Year award earlier this year.
In collaboration with John Parish to promote their jointly-credited album, ‘A Woman A Man Walked By', the PJ Harvey tour started in the UK at venues including Brighton's Corn Exchange, the Ritz in Manchester and the O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire, followed by dates in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium and France.
After successfully using Allen & Heath's flagship modular iLive system with Danish pop act, Alphabeat, Booker selected the compact iLive-T system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T80 Control Surface.
"The small footprint and convenience of iLive-T has made life easy on this tour because we're mostly playing quite small venues. The entire system takes up a mere one square metre!" commented Booker. "iLive-T has been very reliable and the sound quality is great - possibly even better than the ‘parent' iLive. The Surface's illuminated panels are nice and bright, aiding quick and easy identification when you're in a dark environment. I think Allen & Heath has done a great job of bringing their technology into a different price bracket, making it an immediate competitor to something like the Yamaha LS9."
House PA systems were used for a majority of shows, whilst stage and line systems were provided by Liverpool's Adlib Audio. Instead of spending time with the band in rehearsal, Booker designed his basic mix on a laptop loaded with iLive Editor control software, and fine tuned the mix on the first date of the tour.
"I went for it on the first night and within a few minutes I'd ironed out the rough edges of the mix and it was plain sailing from there. I have 20 faders per bank at my disposal, which allows me to mix the whole band effortlessly on one layer with a different layer assigned to Polly's in-ear mix with her own EQ."
Harvey is the sole IEM user with Booker using a duplicate system on PFL.
"Polly likes to hear the same mix every night, and working digitally with recalled settings means that I can deliver exactly what she needs," explained Booker.
"I'll be taking an iLive out on the US leg of the tour. I really like the way it sounds and the style of layout. Allen & Heath has been incredibly supportive and when I sent them a list of recommendations for slight modifications after the Alphabeat tour it was great to see that they'd included them in the iLive-T that I'm now using," concludes Booker.
In picture: Monitor engineer, Ben Booker, during rehearsals, and PJ Harvey and John Parish during the Shepherd's Bush Empire gig in London photo: Kelda Hole
6th July 2009
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