Supporting Linkin Park on the European leg of their Hunting Party arena tour, Californian band, Of Mice & Men used Allen & Heath’s GLD-80 mixer for both FOH and monitors.
This was the first experience of using GLD for both FOH engineer,Dave Nutbrown and monitor engineer Ian ‘Squid’ Walsh, who needed a system that could handle large arena shows from a compact footprint.
A GLD-80 connected over Cat5 to AR2412 and AR84 AudioRacks provided 32 XLR inputs for stage sources, and delivered five in-ear mixes, side fill and a pair of centre wedges. Both this and the FOH GLD-80 were fitted with Dante cards allowing mic preamp signals to be fed to both via Dante over Cat5. The analogue gain was set at the start of the tour, with the engineers using the consoles’ digital trim (±24dB) to independently make adjustments during the shows.
‘It’s really easy to use and it’s such a small rig,’ says Walsh on the GLD’s workflow and compactness. , ‘We were in and out of there so fast.’
Nutbrown also enjoyed his first tour with GLD: ‘We’re happy with it, it’s a good, all round rock ’n’ roll board. Our show finishes at 8 o’clock. I carry it back to the bus at 8.30 and at 8.45 I’m in the bar. What can I tell you?’
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