Allen & Heath GLD-80 Delivers For Silent Concert

Allen & Heath's GLD-80 console has helped to deliver a silent concert which recently took place at Marienplatzfest in Stuttgart. There, more than 1,000 people donned headphones to listen and dance to the music of Adulescens.

Tobias Raunigk, tour manager and FOH engineer, was responsible for the 3D listening experience and adapted the concept of silent concerts for the band.

He explained: "With the 3D listening experience we want to deliver something special for the audience and the organiser alike. Sometimes the audience is a bit hesitant at first but when they put on the headphones you can see them dive into the ocean of sound.

"I've been using the GLD-80 for five years now. At the time I was looking for a compact but flexible console which I could set up fast and easily myself at festivals. Our fastest change over just took four minutes. Working with a GLD-80 was extremely smooth from the beginning since I was used to mixing on analogue desks from Allen & Heath. To me, the GLD-80 is simply one of the most intuitive and musical digital desks out there.

"I'm using the full range of effects processors in the GLD-80 and got rid of all the outboard sideracks. I think the choice of EQs and compressors is excellent and I love fattening kicks and bass with the Hypabass subharmonic synthesizer. I'm a big fan of the ping-pong delays, especially with Adulescens, for giving the vocals that spacey sound the band wants."

He continued: "The 3D headphone mix for the audience is generated by a KLANG:fabrik from KLANG:technologies, which is connected via Dante to the GLD-80. The integration of the GLD-80 into the Dante network is fast and easy and the elegant layer structure allows me to combine audio input layers with MIDI layers to control the musicians' inputs and 3D headphone mix at the same time."

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