DJzone DJ Magazine

Southwest production company, Fearless Audio, employed an Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system for one of the stages at the recent Glastonbury festival in Somerset. Fearless were contracted to manage audio on the G stage, part of the growing Dance Area of the festival, which also comprised the East and West Coast stages, Dance Lounge, and Pussy Parlure.

Having road-tested the system on other productions, Fearless installed an iDR10 DSP rack onstage with iLive-144 FOH control surface, managing a total of 34 DJ acts over the 3 day event. G Stage acts included The Plumps DJ's, Rennie Pilgrem & MC Chickaboo, Adam Freeland, Andy C, Adam F, Shpongle, Freq Nasty, Scotch Egg Band (Drumize), and Atomic Hooligan & Jay Cunning.

The crew battled adverse weather conditions, which saw the festival site descend into one of the worst mud-baths in the event's history.
"Despite the terrible weather conditions, iLive performed flawlessly - it's a fantastic system," commented Fearless Audio owner, Kevin Allen. "It made load in and set up really easy, as the iDR10 rack is positioned onstage and we only need CAT5 cable to connect it to the FOH surface - much easier than lugging a heavy multicore around. "I've tested many of the digital desks currently available on the market and in my opinion iLive is the best-sounding of the lot, plus, it has to be the simplest system to navigate, especially for engineers migrating from analogue."

Fearless also used mixers from Allen & Heath's DJ range onstage, installing Xone:92 and Xone:62 mixers for the DJ's. Further afield, Xone:92's were used on many of the stages featuring DJ's, including the West Coast stage, which hosted Sasha, Hybrid and Coldcut, in the Dance Lounge for James Lavelle, and the Techno dome. Renowned DJ/producer, Andy Barlow, used the new Xone:3D MIDI mixer/controller for his performances in the Dance Lounge, Lost Vagueness Diner and ID Spiral stage.

Over at the Red Bull Saloon, a 48-channel GL2800 multi-purpose mixer managed a colossal 47 bands between Thursday and Sunday, ranging from the Jaipur Kawa Brass Band to punk outfit, Caged Baby.

"I always try to use GL desks when I'm engineering as they are totally hassle free and sound great," explains engineer, Ed Shackleton. "I particularly love the EQ, which has a great range and is very responsive, and the mic preamps are really quiet. The GL2800 managed the quick band changeovers without a hitch, and all the bands' engineers were very impressed."