New York, NY (April 5, 2018)—Keyboardist Rick Wakeman is seemingly perpetually on the road touring in support of his many recordings, both solo and with permutations of the legendary prog rock act Yes. Recently, his travels brought him to England’s Lincoln Cathedral, where he recorded a live version of his 2017 ‘Piano Portraits’ album in front of a live audience
On hand for the project was his longtime studio engineer/producer Erik Jordan, who used an Allen & Heath dLive system based around a S7000 surface with M-Dante card, DM64 MixRack and DX32 Expander, all supplied by Tech-Serve Audio Consultants.
“I knew from Ian Barfoot, Rick’s FOH engineer and a longstanding dLive user, how flexible and intuitive the system was to use,” said Jordan. “Although this was my first real dLive experience, it took very little time to become familiar with. We had around 20 mics for Rick’s vocal, piano, audience and ambient pickup and. because the show was filmed for DVD release. I was able to very easily route different mix permutations for the cameras.“
Jordan also noted how the interface options worked to set up multi-track recording to various devices: “Among the priorities for the project was complete reliability and the ability to use multiple recording devices with minimum fuss. Thanks to the dLive, rather than bringing in racks of additional Pro Tools rigs, we were able to simply run a pair of laptops as backup recorders. And of course, the preamps sound great, so overall it was the ideal choice for what was a pretty high-pressure live recording situation.”
Allen & Heath • www.allen-heath.com
