LOS ANGELES – A bad case of laryngitis may have forced the cancellation of the last nine sold-out North American performances by British vocalist Adele, but before the tour was cut short, FOH engineer Dave McDonald and monitor engineer Joe Campbell were each supporting British vocalist Adele's U.S. tour with an Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system. The system included two iLive-112 Control Surfaces with an iDR10 modular MixRack and iDR0 mini Rack, connected via ACE and input sharing over MADI.
"iLive stands apart from other consoles because of its ease of use," said McDonald, who had previously used iLive on tour with Florence and The Machine and AIR. "Like painting, you want to be creating when you mix, not reading a manual. You can do that with this desk – you stand in front of it and it's logical. It's also reliable, you know that you can get up in the morning, turn it on, and it does exactly what it's meant to do every day.
"I'm using iLive differently on this tour as there are a lot more channel inputs and additional instruments like banjos," McDonald continued. "However, the biggest challenge is keeping Adele's voice under control because it is so big and so powerful. iLive's compressors are of a quality that holds things down and keeps the sound together."
McDonald has produced a 64-channel live recording from iLive via the MADI connection. For broadcast duties, an additional iDR10 MixRack, daisy-chained to the MADI split, provides up to 64 XLR mic-pre outputs, or any mix signals as needed on the day without affecting front end gain.
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I was a little apprehensive having to learn about a new console straight away with a new artist," admitted Campbell, who had no previous experience of iLive. "But it took me 10 minutes to learn how to use it. The way it's set out is so simple, with a compressor and limiter/gate on every channel, it's so obvious, no mystery at all.
"Another great thing is, it's really small and light, but there are loads of inputs and outputs, so we have everything we need," Campbell continued. "We don't carry any outboard gear because the EQ, compression, gates and FX are all within the console. I have six FX engines, mostly reverbs, and that's it."
Campbell mixes a combination of in-ears and wedges. The two guitarists and the bass player only use wedges. Adele, the drummer and backing vocalists are on IEMs. Adele uses wedges for a couple of songs where she is accompanied only by a piano.
"I like the way you can configure the control surface in any way to suit your own way of working," Campbell said. "I can change things on the fader and select easily with the touch screen but more importantly for me, I can switch between wedge and in-ear mixes really quickly and access any part of the desk fast."
Adele's new album, 21, has spent eleven consecutive weeks at number one in the U.K., the longest ever by a female solo artist on the UK Albums Chart. The album has also broken the record for the most U.K. digital downloads.
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