For the second consecutive year, Allen & Heath was present with a technical team at the iconic Brazilian Carnaval to support the engineers and artists who were working with the manufacturer’s audio mixing systems. For six days in a row, about 30 ‘trío eléctricos’ (motorized floats carrying musicians and singers) took on a 6-hour circuit fully loaded with a PA system, LED screens, lights and two consoles each.
Every day of the Carnaval, about 10 of the trío eléctricos were configured with Avantis or dLive systems for FOH or monitors, and dLive MixRacks were also utilised on some of the floats for digital splits to broadcast systems.
Singer-songwriter Bell Marques was one of the renowned artists performing each day, using an Avantis console for monitors operated by engineer Antonio Jesus. As well as receiving positive feedback from the eight musicians on the quality of their monitor mixes, Jesus also praised the console’s stability and ease of use during the 6-hour set, enabling his mix position to remain an oasis of calm amidst the revelry and celebrations.
Sound engineer Amario Junior was in charge of monitors for singer Claudia Leitte, where he had the challenge of mixing 19 IEM for both backing musicians and production staff. Making use of dLive’s configurable 64-bus architecture, Junior configured these as 14 mono and 4 stereo aux mixes while using the LR bus for Leitte.
The CDM64 MixRack gave Leitte’s monitor engineer all the necessary processing tools to get the best sound out of the 59 input channels, which included drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, synths, horns section, multiple percussion sets, backing vocals, main vocal and several talkbacks. Meanwhile, the S5000 Surface allowed for comprehensive control and quick access with mixes assigned to the right-side fader banks, and input channels on the left side.
The clarity and transparent sound obtained from the sources through the dLive preamps was commented on by many of the sound engineers working with Allen & Heath’s flagship audio mixing system during the six-day event.
Founder of the biggest annual audio tradeshow in Brazil, SemanÁudio, Tito Estrada used Avantis to mix FOH for the band Filhos de Jorge. As was typically the case for the FOH engineers at the Carnaval, the main mix was mono and sent to 4 matrix busses feeding front, back, left, and right speakers positioned around the trío eléctricos.
dLive CDM64 MixRacks were utilised in several trío eléctricos, receiving an analogue split from the main stage rack. A broadcasting crew transmitted 40 channels through Dante into satellite AV portable broadcasting units and over to a studio where a mix was being done for the live transmission. As a backup, engineer Fabio Macedo took on the task of handling the LR Mix using dLive Director from a laptop and monitoring directly from the CDM64 MixRack headphones output, despite the challenging environment considering the noise levels and restricted space.
With an estimated 4 million people out celebrating during the Carnaval, it was a momentous occasion seeing 17 Allen & Heath consoles on the mix for the Campo Grande – Praça Castro Alves and Barra – Ondina circuits. A couple of members of the Allen & Heath team, two employees from ARS Technologies, and four from Allen & Heath’s Brazilian distributors Audio Systems were hard at work throughout the celebrations to ensure everything ran smoothly, and all the efforts of the team and engineers paid off with a successful closing of the Carnaval Salvador 2024.
