MIAMI – Drummer Boy Sound has added an Allen & Heath iLive-T digital mixing system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T112 Control Surface, to its rental inventory.
"I took an iLive-T system out on a couple demos and was blown away with what it could do, especially for such a great price," said company founder and CEO, Harold Cummings. "Our roots are in live sound, and we do a lot of high-profile events around Miami. When I began using the console system at those shows, I can't tell you what a difference it made; small footprint, easy and fast to set up, no outboard gear – and it sounds fantastic."
One of the first events Cummings managed with the new iLive system was the National Day of Prayer at Miami's Faith Center. The venue seats about 4,000 worshipers, and the Telemundo network also recorded the event.
"A situation came up," recalls Cummings, "where a guest musician taking the stage inadvertently crossed through my cordoned off power management area and tripped the power to the iLive surface. However, the mix engine is in the iDR-48, which has redundant power supplies, so we never lost any audio and all mics and speakers stayed live. I restored power and in less than a minute, the control surface was rebooted with all settings in place. The band started the next song and never missed a beat, and the audience never knew. It was seamless, and it proved to me what a well-engineered piece of gear this is. I turned into a total iLive fan at that point."
Operationally, Cummings uses iLive's DCA groups, usually dividing the music presentation into three or four groups with drums on DCA1, keys on DCA2 and vocals on DCA3, with DCA4 spare.
"Just hitting ‘Select' and having that channel in front of me is a great idea as it lets me work quickly and gives the board an analog feel. With iLive, you can work by ear, as the screen is very useful – especially for tweaking the details of limiting, compression and EQ – but it's not necessary to run the board, so I can pay attention to what's happening on stage," comments Cummings on iLive's operational design.
"The preamps and the effects on the iLive sound fantastic, like a high-end analog desk. The sound that I get coming straight off the board is amazing, and I record straight to my MacBook Pro out of the matrix and it's ridiculous how clean and even the recordings sound. I don't have to tweak it on the record side at all, just do a stereo matrix out, set the input so it's at a non-distorted level, and go. When I send my clients a CD of their event, they are just blown away. That's the kind of difference the iLive has made for me."
With the experience he's gained using the iLive-T112 system at live events around Miami, Drummer Boy Sound has come to appreciate the flexibility of Allen & Heath's design.
"Originally, I was sold on this desk as the perfect installation console for the church market because of its price point, its feature set and sound quality. However, using it on live event productions, I saw how much of a weapon iLive really is. My plan is to buy two of them, and a third one down the line. They are that good."
For more information, please visit www.ilive-digital.com
