Allen & Heath systems mixed at both ends of the digital snake for platinum-selling singer, Eleonora Zouganeli’s summer 2020 Namaste tour of her native Greece. The tour played to appreciative audiences in 1,500 to 2,500 capacity outdoor venues, navigating the challenges of changing government restrictions and local interpretations of the rules regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Zouganeli’s longstanding FOH Engineer, Brian Coon specified the mixing system, which was supplied by rental company, Backstage Services, based in Perama-Piraeus. A dLive DM48 MixRack was the heart and brains of the system, providing a split over A&H’s GigaACE protocol to a dLive S5000 surface on monitors and a compact SQ-7 console at FoH. The SQ-7 had been treated to the full DPack upgrade, allowing Brian to employ many of his favourite dLive processing models.
Having worked with many other industry standard consoles in the past, A&H has become Brian’s console of choice. “I have been trying to use Allen & Heath consoles since I first encountered dLive three years ago,” he explained. “I immediately loved the sound, the workflow, the effects and the compressors, dynamic EQs and everything. The monitor engineer hadn’t encountered the current generation of A&H mixers before this tour and he was also very pleased with the sound, the headroom and the effects. Our artist noticed the difference right away too.”
The channel count for the singer and her five backing musicians reached 32 inputs, including four for the main vocalist (AES, analogue, spare and comms channels). All five members of the backing band had detailed control over their own monitor mixes using ME-1 personal mixers, fed from the DM48, allowing monitor engineer, Dimitris Samaras to focus his attention on Eleonora Zouganeli’s mix. All the performers were on IEMs, supplemented by a pair of sidefills and vocal monitors as a backup.
Eleonora Zouganeli’s annual tours have become as much a part of the Greek summer as sunshine and Retsina. Like so many tours that have braved the uncertain summer of 2020, the artists and crew have had to deal with the ups and downs of sell-out shows mixed with cancellations and postponements. Through it all, Brian and rest of the crew worked hard to deliver a first-class live experience for the performers and audiences.
