Allen & Heath GLD brings 3D mix to Germany’s largest silent gig

An Allen & Heath GLD-80 mixer was recently used at one of the biggest silent concerts ever staged in Germany, where a crowd donned more than 1000 headphones to listen and dance to the sound of German band Adulescens.

The concert, which took place at Marienplatzfest in Stuttgart, allows bands and DJs to play throughout the night without a loud, intrusive PA.

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

“With the 3D listening experience we want to deliver something special for the audience and the organiser alike,” explained Raunigk. “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,” Raunigk remarked. “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.”

Raunigk also made use of the full range of effects processors in the GLD-80 in order to relinquish all of 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,” he said. “I’m a big fan of the ping-pong delays, especially with Adulescens, for giving the vocals that spacey sound the band wants.”

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,” Raunigk concluded.

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