BUSINESS: TECHNOLOGY
Filling the gap
Richard Lawn travels to Cornwall to meet Allen & Heath’s new digital console, Avantis
Managing director Rob Clark
CELEBRATING ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY IN 2019, Allen & Heath marked a distinguished half-centur y in the enter tainment technology industr y with a notable product launch. As an early pioneer of analogue mixers, the company began its digital journey in the mid-1990s. By focusing on affordable, quality audio without sacrificing per formance, the brand found a successful gap in the market and has since gained increasing recognition as a pioneer of digital console technology. Following several changes in ownership over its long histor y, Allen & Heath is now under the stewardship of Audiotonix alongside Calrec, DiGiCo and Solid State Logic, making it well poised to meet the challenges of the next half-centur y. Having significantly invested in its
82 PRO AVL ASIA Januar y–Februar y 2020
R&D director Andy Bell
Cornish R&D team, Allen & Heath continues to listen to its growing database of users by developing products with a ready-made market. Its third 96kHz digital mixer, Avantis, is a 64-channel/42 configurable bus console with twin full HD touchscreens, extensive I/O options and processing from the company’s flagship dLive mixing system. Remarkably, the console’s origins only date back to early 2017, when managing director Rob Clark threw down the gauntlet to R&D director Andy Bell to plug the gap between the successful dLive and SQ platforms. ‘At the outset, the internal development name for this project was “Bridge”,’ explains Bell. ‘We knew from our customers exactly what was needed – a console that
Product manager Nic Beretta
could handle higher channel and mix counts than SQ but was accessible at a lower price point than dLive. ‘Meeting one of those criteria would be simple, but meeting both would not. So, I started sketching out different concepts, trying to find a winning formula. The first key decision was to integrate the I/O and processing in a single unit, which immediately sets it apart from dLive, which has a more flexible, mix ‘n’ match architecture. Initially, Avantis took a lot of inspiration from SQ but, as we got further into new ideas such as screen integration along the bottom edge and the channel strips migrating onto the glass, it rapidly took on an identity of its own.’ The first simple 3D creative of Avantis was a 1:1 cardboard model with printed graphics glued to its
