Archive Takes to the Road With Waves SuperRack LiveBox

Knoxville, Tenn. (August 30, 2024)— Front-of-house engineer Philippe Dubich, whose credits include Asian Dub Foundation, Massive Attack and Indochine, is using a Waves SuperRack LiveBox on British trip-hop/electronica/progressive rock band Archive’s world tour.

Waves’ SuperRack LiveBox can host VST3 plug-ins from Waves and other manufacturers running natively in a 2RU turn-key solution with either Dante or MADI connectivity. The system includes the Waves SuperRack Performer audio plug-in host and Waves Live bundle.

Dubich, who is touring with an SSL L350 Plus console, comments, “I’m a big fan of Waves plug-ins, but I was waiting to be able to use some of my favorite non-Waves plug-ins like the Eventide H3000, and especially, to finally get rid of all external hardware. The fact that the LiveBox is 100 percent autonomous, meaning I don’t need any external computer to run software, is an incredible step forward from my point of view. It exceeded my expectations, as I could finally plug the LiveBox directly into the internal Dante card of my SSL. Now that I only have the LiveBox and the desk, this is a major improvement, and it will remain this way from now on.”

He adds, “Having access to all Waves plug-ins as well as my favorite VST3s, while reducing my FOH to such a simple setup, avoids many potential problems I had before with various pieces of gear. This is the biggest step forward for me since we entered the digital world! With Waves’ LiveBox, I can now have all my different templates on a USB stick, just like in my home studio.”

Dubich is hard-pressed to choose a few favorite plug-ins, he says, as there are so many: “I will say that I love my vocal channel strip chain: PSE [Primary Source Expander], CLA 2A compressor/limiter, Schoeps 73, F6 floating-band dynamic EQ and the CLA-76 compressor/limiter.

“I also like using the CLA Effects plug-in for vocal distortion and for special effects,” he continues. “I use Waves’ Kaleidoscope on a ‘spatial bus,’ as I really like the fact that you can add a flanger plus a tremolo for example, in a simple instance. This helps me a lot to get close to the original sound of Archive’s records vocal production. Smack Attack is a classic in my setups as is Torque, which is a fantastic tool when you need to tune toms or snares, as they tend to lose their tuning during the show.”