Allen & Heath Avantis Solo—A Mix Real-World Review, Part 5

Taken from our April, 2025 issue, Steve La Cerra’s deep dive into the Allen & Heath Avantis Solo console is the longest product review in Mix history! Since it runs nearly 5,000 words, we’re doing something we’ve never done before: breaking it up across multiple parts to make it more manageable to read online. Don’t pass up Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4!

DEEP Processing With dPack

The dPack plug-in option upgrade includes a host of Allen & Heath DEEP processors. The compressors are a lot of fun, offering emulations of the 1176, dbx 160XT and 160 VU, Valley People Dyna-Mite (in all its glorious obnoxiousness), SSL bus compressor, and others. These can be used on any input or output channel simply by recalling them from the Comp library in the normal Comp slot (they don’t require use of an Insert). I did not encounter any limitations regarding the number of DEEP plug-ins that can be used; the FPGA reportedly has enough processing to run a DEEP compressor on every input and output bus simultaneously.

dPack also provides up to 16 instances of Dyn8 multiband processing: MB4, a four-band compressor with the option to switch to MB3; and DynEQ4, a four-band dynamic EQ for use as inserts on any input or output channel. These worked fine, but I didn’t care for the UI on either because I found the touch gestures inconsistent with those of the other processors. For example, on a PEQ, you can grab an EQ point on screen with your finger, then move it along either axis (gain or frequency) or pinch to change the Q. But in MB4, you can’t drag the threshold value on-screen—you need to use the T&T.

Similarly, in DynEQ4 you can grab the frequency of a band with your finger and change it, but you can’t use your finger to change the threshold value. The Listen function for P/AFL applies here, and you can hear signal along the path in between any of the bands.

The Dyn8 interface does not have a Library button; you access the library by pushing Options in the Swipe menu. Pressing Recall for a preset does not close the Library window as it does on other plugins, which is annoying. There is no added latency when using a dPack plug-in, whereas using an external processor (hardware or software) will likely incur some measure of latency.

dPack also adds NEQ12, which can replace the GEQ on any output bus and merits some discussion. NEQ12 is a 12-band fully parametric EQ with the option to switch the low and high bands to filters with 12, 24 or 48 dB/octave slopes. It’s an incredibly useful tool for audio surgery or sculpting a mix. The interface shows four bands at a time, with the ability to switch between the four low, mid or high bands.

The entire EQ can be switched in or out, as can any of the 12 bands (no surprise there), and the Reset button can be used to reset any of the bands or the entire EQ, which is helpful.