Norwegian P.A. rental company Lydfiksern has purchased an Allen & Heath iLive digital system to add to its hire stock. Comprising an iDR10 mix rack and iLive-144 control surface, the new system was used for the first time at the premiere of a new musical called Snow and Fire, which debuted at the annual Polar Spectacle festival held in Varanger, in the northern extremes of Norway.
”Varanger is literally located on top of the world; it must be the farthest north iLive has travelled,” comments Øystein Wierli from XL Audio Norway, who sold the system. ”The iLive performed flawlessly, and the entire crew quickly felt comfortable with operating it.”
A theater stage filling up an indoor sports hall was constructed to host the musical, and the producers used 6,000 meters of white cloth to create a deserted icy environment where the drama is played out.
Audio requirements included 18 omni-headband mics, 32 inputs from the 18-piece orchestra and a stereo sub mix from a 10-piece choir, as well as several additional stereo sources. ”The orchestra produced quite a bit of direct sound as they were positioned behind the P.A. hangs on the left, so we used two groups with different delay settings for left and right,” comments Lydfiksern’s managing director, Thomas Mikarlsen, who engineered the concert. ”We also applied delay to the choir’s stereo input and some other outputs. On the sub feeds, it was really easy to dial in the delay time to get them in phase with the P.A. because iLive’s response time is so fast.”
Mikarlsen used 56 inputs and 24 outputs, mixing L/C/R and two delay zones, local monitors, two subwoofer feeds and 15 different monitor sends comprising five IEMs in mono and 10 wedge feeds.
”I used a lot of compression and a few gates,” he says. “The EQ is very nice sounding and transparent, and the effects sounds great. Selecting functions such as the PEQ, GEQ, dynamics or preamp on screen was neat, as you can edit them with a stylus and the changes are applied immediately so you can easily hear them as you go. Routing and assigning is a breeze, and I never felt the console was being maxed out by everything I ran through it; it remained transparent, fast and responsive. I really enjoyed being able to assign my faders freely. I put all my instrument groups on DCAs so I could cue on my monitor or headphones, which made it easy to adjust the balance in, for instance, the woodwinds or strings section.
”It was my first live experience with the iLive and I have to say it came through with flying colors. It’s fast, compact and very powerful, and I don’t think anything in its price range can touch it right now.”
For additional information on the board, visit www.ilive-digital.com. For additional SR news, visit The Briefing Room.
