USA - Brent Washburn's first experience working in sound was mixing punk shows in his basement around 15 years ago. "I had an old analogue console with full D-sub output to a computer for recording," he recalled. "I met a lot of great artists from that experience, and started touring with a few of them."
After touring for a while, Washburn started looking for a more consistent experience at each venue. "I got tired of the console du jour, and having to dial in IEM mixes each time," he explained. "It left me less time to work on my front-of-house mix before we actually hit the stage."
Seeing influential engineers like Drew Thornton mix big acts on compact control surfaces inspired his next move. "That seemed to make a lot of sense," he recalled. "I heard how great their mixes sounded, and started seeing more and more people go that route."
In 2020, Washburn decided to invest in his own compact touring rig – featuring an iPad running the dLive MixPad app, a DM0 dLive MixRack, and two DX168 stageboxes. Eventually, Washburn also added in a dLive C1500 control surface for more hands-on mixing.
“The rig has been rock-solid from day one," he said. "I've taken this system all across North America, Europe, Asia – it's great that such a small form factor has the ability to scale up to 128 inputs." Washburn's current tour with pop artist Elijah Woods includes his own compact rig, plus a second dLive mixrack for monitors connected in a digital split over Dante.
In addition to the system's portability, Washburn appreciates how dLive's workflow can be customised. "You can very easily change how the console feels and how you can access your different channel types," he explained. "It's all very intuitive and user-friendly."
Washburn has also been taking advantage of some newly released features in dLive firmware V2.1. "The group-to-group routing is a complete game-changer," he explained. "I previously had to use some workarounds to accomplish that type of complex routing, and now it's completely streamlined."
