Renowned German singer, Mine, recently staged a special orchestral concert produced with an Allen & Heath dLive S Class mixing system as the central hub for the monitor mix and signal routing.
The concert took place in the famous Huxleys Neue Welt music club in Berlin. The show featured on stage, Mine’s band, a 12-piece orchestra, a 15-voice choir, DJs plus various guest vocalists and rappers. With over 90 microphones and inputs, Dennis Kopacz, Technical Director of the show, chose a dLive S5000 Surface and DM48 MixRack expanded to 108 inputs to manage mixing and routing.
“The S5000 is the heart of the whole production and is not only used as a monitor desk but also for routing the signals via MADI to the FOH desk and the Pro Tools rig, which records the whole show,” explained Kopacz. “Since space is tight, we needed a compact desk which is still able to handle lots of inputs and mixes, and allows complex routings. dLive delivers in every aspect.”
Recording orchestral instruments on the crowded stage is another challenging topic for Kopacz since no acoustic separation could be used. All string instruments are mic‘ed separately by ATM350 microphones from Audio-Technica, which have some key advantages for Kopacz:
“Not only do the ATM350 sound great on all kind of string instruments but they are also very easy to handle by classical musicians who don’t have much experience in using microphones.”
“dLive is my first choice when I need to route a huge number of signals in an easy but flexible way. New features, like DCA spill, let me also handle large mixes on a relatively small surface. Also, the system is absolutely reliable and simply sounds very good,” Kopacz continued. “Last but not least, the user interface is laid out very well and it’s easy to use; even engineers who have never worked on the desk before can get up to speed in no time and deliver great mixes.”