Accompanying Norwegian DJ and record producer Alan Walker on his Aviation tour of China, India and Norway are an Allen & Heath dLive mixing systems handling both FOH and monitor duties.

Currently one of Norway’s biggest EDM exports, Walker’s performances rely on various software as well as a live band and requires a complex set-up. His engineers needed a small and lightweight system to fly around the world, which could also handle a high I/O count via several protocols, such as Waves SoundGrid, Dante and Madi in order to interface with third-party systems.

Supplied by audio production company Sonic City, the FOH set-up includes a dLive C1500 fitted with a Waves card for virtual sound check and multitrack recording, paired with a DM0 MixRack, which is equipped with a fibreAce card for the digital split and a Dante card to facilitate external plug-in processing through a DAW. A DX012 expander is also used for additional outputs at the FOH position, providing feeds to the light designer, VJ and laser operator.

‘We chose the dLive C1500 package as we needed a fly-rig with a really high channel count for this tour and the choice was ultimately, really simple,’ says FOH engineer and Sonic City partner, Sondre Rosseland Sandhaug. ‘dLive provides everything we need; flexible routing, the Tie Lines feature, high-quality sound, reliability and an excellent range of I/O options. There was really no other choice for us on the market.’

‘The dLive system has worked well on this tour and we’ve really pushed the system to its full potential, particularly in terms of the I/O count,’ adds monitor engineer, Einar Norberg. ‘All stages of the production, from system design to running the shows, has run smoothly thanks to the quality, stability and the intuitive workflow of dLive.’

The monitor set-up uses a second dLive C1500 fitted with a Dante card, which is paired with a CDM48 MixRack equipped with a fibreAce card and connected to DX164-W expanders for additional on-stage I/O. ‘We went for the DX164-W because of its small footprint. As this tour has mainly been a fly-pack so far, the size and weight has been really important to us,’ Sandhaug explains.

‘We started the tour with the C1500 fly-rig and flew to China for several large shows and then when we hit Norway, we expanded to a setup with the dLive S7000 and DM64 MixRack for monitors and S5000 with DM0 at FOH, in order to carry out the larger production in Oslo Spektrum,’ says Norberg. ‘Even the transition from C to S class was seamless and really helped us to create an amazing and elegant transition in the production. In a complex and dynamic live production where things are constantly changing, it’s reassuring to be able to put complete trust in your console and dLive is the perfect tool.’

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