Released last month, Allen & Heath’s ultra-lightweight CTi1500 dLive surface brought its compact performance to Helene Bøksle’s Christmas tour of Norway.
Helene Bøksle is among Norway’s leading vocalists and her winter tours of churches and concert venues have become a much-loved part of the festive season. Although scaled back due to Covid 19 restrictions, the 2020 tour covers a lot of ground, with long mountain drives and some internal flights bringing Helene and her accompanying musicians to 15 towns and cities on both sides of the arctic circle.
Audio engineer, Kenneth Vadset needed a mixing system that could travel with him, providing artists and audiences with the same high-quality experience at every show. Kenneth was already very familiar with the Allen & Heath dLive system, and the just-released CTi1500 surface fitted the brief perfectly.
Weighing just 11.5kg / 25.4lbs, CTi1500 has been developed from the popular C1500 19” surface, with Titanium side panels and other weight-saving modifications driving its flightcased weight below the magic 23kg/50lbs needed to fly as standard baggage on most airlines. “Helene has this remarkable, crystal clear voice and tremendous dynamic range, and that’s what the audience has come to experience,” Kenneth explains. “So having high-quality audio equipment from input to output is crucial. The CTi1500 has made it so much easier to carry the system I know and trust with me to every show.”
The CTi1500 is teamed up with a CDM32 MixRack, which accommodates Helene’s vocal mics along with piano, percussion, trumpet, guitars, choir and string quartet. Kenneth mixes both FoH and Monitors from the CTi1500, making use of the dLive OneMix app to lighten the workload by allowing the musicians to control their own monitor mixes.
With a lot of mixing to do from a 12-fader surface, Kenneth makes full use of CTi1500’s tools for streamlining his workflows. “The combination of scenes and softkeys make it very quick to get around the CTi1500, and there are a lot of features that help you be creative with such a small surface,” Kenneth elaborates. “I use a lot of softkeys for quick access to monitor mixes and sends, and to do things like muting the reverb in Helene’s in-ears between songs or toggling my talkback mic. The softkeys are also great for selecting the LR mix when I’m working in another layer of faders.”
The tour closes at Hilstrad Church on December the 23rd, followed by a free livestreamed concert for fans who were unable to catch one of the shows on Christmas Eve.
