Legendary disco act, Chic featuring Nile Rodgers, performed an acclaimed set on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage using Allen & Heath dLive S Class mixing systems. Supported by F1 Sound, John Ryan, Tech Production Manager and FOH engineer, used a S7000 linked by FibreACE to an onstage DM48 MixRack, whilst monitor engineer, Marco Della Torre, used a S7000 and DM48 with MADI for recording.
John Ryan, FOH of mister Hit Maker Nile Rodgers proudly showing the S7000 surface.
John Ryan, who has been mixing for Nile Rodgers and CHIC for the past 13 years, says: “From the first moment I turned it on, I immediately became friends with dLive. The system proves to be fast and easy to set up and have you ready to go on the fly, something that is quite frequent during festival shows where you are almost never allowed a sound check.
The basic features, right out of the box, are easy to spot on the dLive surface; quick assignable function buttons and pots where you would expect them to be, 36 totally assignable faders divided into 3 banks on 5 layers, amazingly great-sounding plugin emulations, a user-friendly menu and everything you need to know for any selected channel is clearly displayed on the two touch screens.
The Pyramid stage as seen from the FOH during Chic’s performance.
A handy “HELP” button is available for first time users. Dragging and dropping channel strip assignments to your surface is quick, reliable and definitely one of the most useful features when organizing your layers, especially when you want to keep specific channels right on top, stored in each song of your set list, without the need for hunting down a channel that is originally assigned to a lower layer.
The superb sound quality, processing and nearly non-existent latency almost makes you think you’re working on an analogue desk. The dLive is now on our production rider as my preferred FOH mixer.”
Marco Della Torre, an Italian smile to add even more fun to Nile’s stage left
Monitor engineer, Marco Della Torre, adds: “I have been using digital desks for many years, and I think I can summarize my experience with dLive in 3 words: easy, compact, connections! You only need two minutes to scan and remember all the buttons/knobs on the surface, and then you can mix – it’s easy and quick.
Everything you need is there in a small frame, and believe me, this is very important for monitor engineers! We’re always on the run looking after the musicians, and it’s very helpful to have, and be able to reach, all of the features. Also, dLive is so light! I really love the fact that you can switch network protocols just like a matrix dot-to-dot, and this is without using surface processing! You simply plug in the cards you need, cross patch and it’s done. I not think there’s any other brand on the market that allows you to do this. Finally, oh yes, the sound in amazing!”
More information on the Allen & Heath website
Text and Photos Allen & Heath
