The Green Rocks Red Rocks Amphitheatre with dLive

A mainstay at pop and reggae festivals around the world, The Green recently performed at Colorado’s famed Red Rocks Amphitheatre, supported by a duo of Allen & Heath dLive S Class consoles. The Green, a roots reggae and indigenous Hawaiian band, has frequently topped the Billboard Reggae Charts and earned a number of “Best Reggae Album” awards since their formation in 2009.

Denver-based IPG Tech provided two dLive S5000 Control Surfaces and two DM48 MixRacks outfitted with fibreACE and Dante audio networking cards to cover FOH and monitor mixing and multitrack recording duties at the large outdoor venue with seating for over 9,000 fans.

FOH engineer Matt Lawrence specified dLive, noting its reliability and internal dynamics and effects processing power. “I’ve mixed on dLive all around the world and never had issues,” says Lawrence. While internal dLive effects like snare plates, a transient controller, an automatic double tracker, stereo chorus and stereo tap delay were all used for the performance, Lawrence says the OptTronik compressor was a standout. “With the new DEEP OptTronik [‘2A-style compression] through a huge PA with five-part harmonies on vocals—you can’t beat the sound and feel. The DEEP 16T was also a go-to compressor and found its way onto a number of channels in a reggae setting like this.” Speaking to what it’s like mixing at such an iconic venue, Lawrence adds, “The reverberation off of the rocks and the crazy night sky and the vibe of the show certainly took things to another level for sure.”

“The desk is super intuitive and it was exactly how you’d want a show to go,” notes system audio technician Lee Putnam. “Being able to use dLive Director software before the show to get the design and layout of the desks set in advance is such a time saver. I also love the peace of mind of having redundant links and power supplies with dLive S Class, especially in a complex outdoor environment like Red Rocks.”

Monitor engineer Ross Chergosky adds, “I dug in on drums and vocals with quite a number of effects. It was so nice not having to worry about running out of processing and spaces for in-ear mixes all with compression and gates across the board. From the monitor mixing perspective, things can get wacky really quickly with layers of processing in other consoles and systems.” Chergosky concludes, “dLive is nice with a fixed latency and not having to worry about the computer load and not having to do math.”