California Indie-pop group TV Girl started as a casual side project between friends Trung Ngo and Brad Petering in San Diego. They later blew up through major social media success during the pandemic and began touring internationally.
Mixing front of house for TV Girl is Florida-based engineer Michael Tomas Regina, who has opted for Allen & Heath as his console brand of choice. “I had mixed TV Girl on an (A&H) SQ for a while,” he explained. “I liked the way it sounded and how small it was. At a certain point I realized I needed more I/O and FX, so I explored what the next step up would be.”
After some research, Regina moved up to an Allen & Heath Avantis Solo – which supports up to 64 input channels and 42 configurable buses with 12 FX racks. “I had some experience on dLive as well,” he noted. “But I never needed more than 64 channels and I appreciate that the Avantis platform is an all-in-one solution whereas dLive is more modular.”
Regina now mixes both TV Girl and Alt-pop duo Magdalena Bay on his Avantis Solo, which he has flown with to Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and all over the United States. Also part of the system are two DX168 96kHz stageboxes, which connect back to the console with redundancy thanks to two DX-HUBs and a gigaACE card. “I just love this system because I don’t have to touch the house snakes,” he noted. “I have a stagebox near the drums and another in keyboard world, and everything comes back to the console over redundant CAT cables.”
Touring with his own complete system means that Regina can verify functionality of all components before even rolling out to the stage. “I know that everything works because we’ve line checked everything beforehand,” he explained. “It’s awesome.”
Regina also has the dPack plugin package installed on his Avantis Solo, which unlocks powerful DEEP processing emulations without added latency. dPack also includes 16 instances of DYN8, a combination Multiband Compressor and Dynamic EQ plugin with versatile applications. “It’s great to tour with that functionality built into my console and not need an external plugin server,” noted Regina. “I use DYN8 on vocals, my drum bus, and even my Main bus sometimes. The dynamic EQ allows me to really shape the sound to match what we’re looking for.”
Regina notes that Magdalena Bay vocalist Mica Tenenbaum performs with a dynamic voice – varying between intimate and high energy moments. “There are FX triggered from the stage to add overdrive and distortion at times, that’s where DYN8 helps a lot. I still have my fingers on the faders, but dynamic EQ helps to catch a lot of those energetic moments.”
Because of Avantis Solo’s compact form factor, Regina works off a single bank of 12 faders for mixing. To facilitate his workflow, Regina customized his fader layout using a combination of DCAs and subgroups. “I reserve the six faders on the right for DCAs and Groups across the top four layers.” he explained. “The six left faders I use for input channels, and the bottom two layers can be FX sends and returns or anything else I need. It was definitely a concern to move to a 12-fader console, but it’s totally fine after setting it up this way.”
Regina also makes use of Avantis Solo’s many user-defined SoftKeys to further adapt the console to his liking. “SoftKeys are definitely one of my favorite things about Avantis Solo,” he noted. “I like the fact that you can really customize the functions you want and put the control where you want it.”
For monitors, Magdalena Bay had previously mixed themselves through an on-stage computer running Abelton – but Regina is in the process of upgrading the band to an improved system using Allen & Heath IP8 controllers. IP8s interface with Allen & Heath Avantis and dLive mixers over network, and their 8 motorized faders can be fully configured to control input channels or AUX sends with accompanying LCD displays showing signal, fader level, and channel names.
“Avantis Solo really checks all the boxes for me,” said Regina. “I’ve worked with a lot of other consoles and nothing else in this price point really matches the power, sound, and workflow of this desk.”
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