New York, NY (December 5, 2022)—Catching George Thorogood and The Destroyers in concert is never anything less than a blast. While the blues rock legend may have a tough-guy-with-a-guitar persona thanks to hits like “Bad to the Bone,” “I Drink Alone” and “One Bourbon, One Scotch and One Beer,” Thorogood is first and foremost an entertainer who leaves it all on the stage night after night. And there’s a lot of nights—the production is a well-oiled touring machine, as everyone knows their role like the backs of their hands. Case in point: sound engineer Jeff Pitt of production company 242 Concepts has been mixing the act for nearly a quarter century.
When it came time to upgrade the band’s touring audio consoles, Pitt and monitor engineer Colten Hyten went through several options before opting for Allen & Heath’s dLive platform during a hands-on demo. “We spent a week going through about 25 iterations of dLive surfaces, mix engines, and expanders,” recounted Hyten. “That’s what really attracted us to dLive—the fact that there are so many different hardware configuration possibilities, without sacrificing any processing power.”
The current tour is being mixed on two dLive S5000 surfaces, one at front of house and one at monitors, mixed by Hyten. Each surface is paired with its own DM0 MixRack to manage their respective 128 channels of 96 kHz processing, and two gigaACE cards handle the digital split between the systems. Off the monitor console’s DM0, Hyten connects multiple DX168 portable I/O boxes on the stage to keep the mic preamps closer to the performers. A DX012 expander adds a dozen more line outputs for the band’s in-ear monitors. “We’ve eliminated so much analog cabling,” remarked Hyten. “That’s been a huge thing for us, since Cat 5e cables are so easy to run and simple to replace if there is ever a continuity issue.”
Live Sound Showcase: Not Just Good; Thorogood
“Another feature we like is the ABCD Preamp option,” remarked Pitt. The ABCD feature on dLive allows for the input source of a particular channel strip to be instantly between four different options, allowing for ast changeover to a backup mic or an alternate wireless system as needed. “If our main RF mic goes down, we have a one-touch solution that places our backup right in the same line, so we don’t have to move channels or remix anything.”
Pitt is also a fan of the recently added RTA overlay on channel equalizers: “It lets you really see the frequency response on an individual channel, getting instant visual feedback on what you’re changing.”
The current tour has put the dLive system through some taxing conditions, but Hyten was pleased with how the consoles have held up. “We opened a big show in Phoenix, where it hit about 109 degrees Fahrenheit,” he recalled. “Some other groups had their equipment shutting down and failing, but the dLives were rock solid.”
