Madison, Wisconsin-based 608 Sound & Light provides audio production services for a wide variety of events, with the one consistent factor being an Allen & Heath dLive C Class C3500 Surface and CDM32 MixRack.

‘I fell in love with the Allen & Heath sound when I was mixing bands in college so, for my production company, I wanted that same sound with a workflow that was logical and flexible,’ says owner, Steve Litscher. ‘I auditioned several boards but, when Full Compass set up a demo of the dLive, I was sold. I wish I had bought it a long time ago,’

Litscher often mixes sound at Kiki’s House of Righteous Music – a Madison venue that attracts world-class touring groups and Grammy-winning artists – and recently provided audio production for one of the stages at Madison’s La Fête de Marquette Festival.

‘At the La Fête Festival, we had a number of bands come through the stage, and when you’re in the heat of the battle and you have a classic guitar, bass, drums and keyboard set-up and then you have to switch to a bluegrass group, the dLive’s flexibility is fantastic,’ he notes. ‘You can just drag-n-drop your strip assignments and set-up changes. With other systems, I would have adapted the bands to the mixer. But with the dLive, I could adapt the mixer to the bands.’

For smaller events, Litscher sets up the CDM32 MixRack and mixes with the dLive Director software on a tablet PC. For larger events, he mixes on the C3500 and uses the dLive Director to set up the house sound and stage monitors. ‘Being able to use the C3500 and the tablet together is fantastic,’ he says. On all of 608’s events, Litscher makes good use of dLive scenes and layers and he praises the dLive’s internal effects. ‘The reverbs sound like the classic analogue units. I’m a huge fan of the Bucket Brigade delay for vocals. And the dLive Dyn8 dynamic EQ and multiband compressor is unbelievable.

More: www.allen-heath.com