Continuing his run of sold-out arena shows, Scottish singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi made history as the first artist to announce and sell out an arena tour before the release of his album – which bacome the UK’s best-selling record of the past five years and gained him global mainstream success throughout 2019.

Now he is on the road again with an Allen & Heath dLive mixing system covering FOH and monitor duties.

‘In early 2019 we were looking for an audio package that was powerful, flexible and compact enough for us to use on every show, be it a Lewis headline as part of a tour, or a run of overseas festivals where space, weight and set-up time were at a premium,’ explains FOH engineer, Andrew Bush.

Supplied by Glasgow-based audio hire company FE-Live, Capaldi’s full arena set-up includes two dLive S5000s on FOH and monitors, paired with a DM64 MixRack (monitors) and DM0 MixRack (FOH). Additionally, Bush uses two DX32 expanders for further I/O. Prior to upscaling the surface, Bush opted for a smaller dLive Wings rig, which is now used for fly-in dates and comprises a multi-surface set-up with two C1500s and a DM48 MixRack. Bush also uses a Dante card (fitted to the surface) for virtual soundcheck and recording each show.

‘The combination of two C1500s and a shared DM48 easily satisfied the initial criteria and we have since moved our show files to two S5000s for our current US/EU/UK touring schedule,’ Bush explains. ‘The transition between surfaces was easy – the dLive software is identical regardless of the stagebox or surface, so moving from C1500 to S5000 was simply a case of reorganising the fader layouts.’

Both Bush and Lawrie make use of dLive’s built-in FX and onboard Deep processing features, particularly when it comes to vocals: ‘Lewis has an incredible voice, but the first time you mix it, it’s terrifying,’ Lawrie says. ‘He can go from head-voice to chest-voice in a matter of seconds, and so I use the Dyn8’s multiband compression and dynamic EQ to quickly even the mix out where needed. I also love the routing options with dLive and being able to double bus, it means I can just refine my mix more and get a really even sound at the end.

‘I also use the Dyn8’s multiband compression a lot on vocals, bass and guitars,’ he adds. ‘However, I also really like the Opto and 16VU – they’re very transparent and being able to put them on multiple channels without any limitations is excellent.’

Despite almost finishing the US and European leg of the tour, 2020 will see Capaldi perform to over a quarter of a million people during his UK and European headline shows.

‘In terms of the shows, they’ve added so much since the start of the year and they’ve increased in scale and capacity as we’ve had to try and keep up with Lewis’s trajectory,’ Bush says. ‘It’s really shown us that dLive can definitely handle the demanding needs of this tour, while providing class-leading tools and studio-quality sound.’

More: www.allen-heath.com