Global Touring Reinvented: Elijah Woods Tours the Globe with Compact dLive System
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. “I’ve been yelling about dLive at the top of the mountain ever since,” he joked. “I can’t say enough good things about the system.”
His compact rig did face some skepticism from other engineers on the road, however. “I’ll never forget walking into the first arena show I mixed with my C1500,” he recalled. Washburn was mixing Juno Award-winning Canadian Pop artist JESSIA at the time, supporting OneRepublic. “The headlining front of house guy looked at me and said: ‘there’s no way you’re about to tour like this.’ It was the most punk-rock thing he’d ever seen.”
Spoiler alert: Washburn’s compact touring rig worked perfectly. “It’s 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.