Staged in the courtyard of Mannheim Castle, a recent production of Schloss in Flammen called on microphones from Audio-Technica mics and mixing from Allen & Heath.
The open-air Schloss in Flammen (Castle In Flames) is a highlight in the festival season in Germany – a mixture of classical music and synchronised fireworks. The orchestra and solo singers from the National Theatre of Mannheim perform arias and other parts of various operas. Provided by Auditiv from Kassel/Germany, the desk was an A&H dLive C Class C3500.
‘The big challenge is that we have nearly no time for rehearsals and soundcheck,’ explains FOH engineer, Rolf Dressler.
‘This is where the easy handling and flexibility of the dLive shines and it got even better with firmware 1.4 and 1.5 and new features like DCA spill and the improved scene management. I also love the sound, the compact size and the low latency of the dLive – that’s why I mixed more than 100 concerts and events last year on dLive.’
As the open-air setting lacks the acoustics of a concert hall, Dressler uses dLive’s internal FX library to simulate them: ‘The dLive reverbs sound really convincing and natural,’ he says. ‘I’m using six different reverbs for high and low strings, woodwind and brass instruments, percussion and vocals.’
The show also involves very dynamic signals, including high forté voices captured by headset mics: ‘Normal compressors don’t help here anymore,’ explains Dressler. ‘But the frequency dependent multiband dynamics of dLive let me tame such difficult signals with ease.’
For the instruments, Dressler makes extensive use of Audio-Technica mics: ‘For violins, violas and woodwind, we use the AT4021, for cello and basses we use the Pro35, and for percussion, condensers like AT4021 and AT2013,’ he says.
