The Oxford, UK music scene has fostered the growth of many innovative alternative artists, from international mega stars Radiohead to more obscure acts like Swervedriver. Gavin McComb was born of the same scene, but unlike the wispy-haired, scarf- wearing rockers of the city he has forged a career working with and mixing some of its best acts. His latest job is FOH engineer for Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey of Supergrass’ new covers band, Hot Rats.

When the band decided to take the project on the road there were new and specific requirements he needed to fulfil, which were based around their use of pre-programmed audio set to a click track, making IEMs a necessity. McComb knew he needed to make the switch to a digital to make it work.

Sceptical of digital consoles, McComb set out to find the most user and analog-friendly console on the market, a search that lead him to Allen & Heath’s iLive mixing system. The band only requires 18 total inputs, which are handled by an iLive-80 console combined with an iDR10 Mix Rack used as an all-in-one FOH and monitor system.

McCombs explains: “The IDR10 holds the inputs and I am Y splitting everything internally in the desk so that I have separate FOH control for eq and dynamics, with a completely separate list of inputs for the IEM mixes that work independently of each other. Running monitor and FOH mixes from one board usually causes problems with communication, but we have gotten over that by being able to save each song as a different scene and store all the nuances for each track in the IEM set up.”

Just before the Hot Rats gig at London’s Hoxton Bar and Grill the board was upgraded with Allen & Heath’s proprietary ACE card, which links the rack and surface (audio and control) over a single Cat5 cable, which can be extended up to 120m. Allen & Heath’s product manager, Leon Phillips, states: “In the beginning Ethersound was the only option, but now we can offer new formats, so if someone wants to stitch our system into something else they can, without having to worry about licensing issues. If they just want a simple link between systems they only need one format by using use ACE (Audio Control Ethernet) over one cable, so its literally just a matter of swapping the hardware over and it is all recognised in the system’s firmware.”

The board was also equipped with the new RAB2 remote audio distribution, which offers MADI, Ethersound or ACE connections and the Mini Multi Out (MMO) card to enable recording from the FOH console via an ADAT split.
McCombs is very comfortable with the ILive-80 stating that it allows him to focus on being creative during the live gigs.

“I quite like the creative side of mixing where you are changing things every day. That is going back to that live analog thing where you are just going for it and doing something different every night depending on the acoustics of the venue,” McCombs says.

“We started with the iLive-112 and then swapped over to the 80 for smaller gigs and it was very apparent that the desk was designed with engineers in mind. The editing power is as massive as every other desk. I can access things like eq and channels very quickly and the colour coding is very easy to set up. It is well designed and they have put a lot of thought in from start to finish.”

Three shows, one day, one desk
The hectic nature of the band’s recent tour has made McCombs use the iLive system to its full capacity. He comments: “We had to do three shows in one day on this tour, which we would never be able to do if we hadn’t gone digital because of the small footprint and the capabilities for quickly changing to adapt to different situations. We had a TV show gig and I gave them a L&R mix out of the desk. I set up a mix that went to their OB truck and they were happy because the whole process was much quicker.

“Later on in the day we did a gig in a pub for about 250 drunk people as part of a Guinness 250th Anniversary. We were running late because of the TV show and when we arrived the place was packed. We loaded in, found one square metre for the iLive-80, ran a Cat5 into the stage box and we were ready to go. It sounded great because everything was all preset. If we hadn’t had such a compact system that was pre-programmed it just wouldn’t have happened.

“That night we did another performance as part of a BBC Radio 2 show. We sound checked the day before so that everything was ready and then just plugged it in on the day. You often find that when you do an on-air show the in-house engineers are very precious about what they are doing because they want to be in full control and they have a deep distrust of live engineers. We explained the day before that we were bringing our own gear, mixes and IEMs and told them that they could either take a pre mixed L&R feed or take splits. I ran the band’s IEMs and set up splits off the stage box and gave them 16 channels. The studio’s engineer did his own broadcast mix on the BBC’s vintage Calrec desk and it sounded great. He gave me a line for the two interviewers that I fed into the band’s IEMs. He was chuffed because he didn’t have to worry about doing headphone mixes for the band and the band was relaxed and familiar with the system.

“It’s funny because they are only a two-piece band and people ask why we have to carry so much gear with us on the road. I tell them that although it looks like a lot of gear, it cuts out so much time because the whole set up is literally ready to plug in and go.

“I still have reservations about digital, but I have been able to use the iLive 80 in an organic way and I can actually mix and be artistic. In the analog days you could be creative with a lot less button pushing. I am definitely championing the iLive system because it has been a real eye opener. I don’t know if there are any similar systems, but for the price it is great and the audio quality has been excellent. I haven’t come in across any quality or preamp issue.

“I will happily say to anyone that you should go with this desk. Forget about any preconceived notions that you have had about any old analog Allen & Heath desks. You can forget about that and give this system a try.”
www.ilive-digital.com