It’s no secret that an Allen & Heath iLive has been my console of choice recently. In fact my beloved iLive-80 has now travelled around the World a couple of times, and clocked up over a hundred shows. When Rob Clark from A&H first contacted me, he joked that the iLive had a built in kettle, so of course, he had my interest straight away! One quick demo later and I was completely hooked.
The FOH set up I’ve developed is very compact. The iLive-80 surface sits on top of my workbox with a laptop for Dante recording, an iPod Touch and a PL10, sat alongside. I also make full use of the iLive MixPad app, particularly when setting up the system each day, and I always have the iLive Editor running on my laptop, as not only does it give a great console overview, but I love dragging and dropping channels on to the surface.
With everything connected to the same network, either physically or via WiFi, I can also use the iPad to remote control music playback on the iPod Touch, and to control my laptop using a VNC app, if needed.
I try to have the PA system feeds split into zones using multiple Matrix outputs, that way I can have full control as I walk around during set up and soundcheck.
Lately I’ve been happy to assist a couple of other engineers who’ve decided to switch to using an iLive, and they’ve thrown a few tricky questions in my direction. It got me thinking that I should start an occasional iLive Blog featuring some tips and tricks and maybe more detailed rundowns on how I go about things.
Of course, Allen & Heath have lots of tips and tricks on their iLive Blog and also a very active User Forum.
2 Comments.
Nice one Dave, one day I may even consider one of those iPad thingys till then I must stick to my trusty old Lenovo tablet. Keep the tips coming I need all the help I can get 🙂
Ian B.
Thank you Ian. I plan to do a post with more detail about using the iPad at some stage.