"I've been working with them for about three years but it's mostly been a lot of fly dates," says FOH engineer and tour manager, Jay Phebus. "When they decided to do a real US tour, I knew exactly what I wanted to take on the road with me. iLive's got a great sound, small footprint, it's incredibly flexible, and the price point is amazing, which is a real factor in touring these days."
Vertical Horizon's equipment requirements comprise two guitars, three vocals, bass and drums, with some triggered percussion and keyboard parts from a hard disc machine to give an authentic feel to their hits. Both guitars are dual-output systems, with a piezo system complementing traditional pickups, which can be switched from electric to acoustic, or both simultaneously, so in effect there are four guitars available, two electrics and two acoustics, as needed.
"It's a fraction of the setup time. The other day, I was busy and literally 15 minutes before sound check I hadn't even entered the building. I walked in, put my iLive together, and was ready to rock. Nobody knew the difference," Phebus reports. "The entire design is brilliant. We just run one Cat 5 cable to FOH from the iDR rack on stage and we're ready. At the end of the night, I can have the console down and in its case, literally within three minutes. Plus, the iLive-T112 is so much lighter than other consoles, I could actually grab the case and walk out the door if I had to."
(Jim Evans)
