LV1 Classic on Tour with Queensrÿche 2025

Apr 02, 2025 | 6,663 Views

“The band asked me to replicate every effect from their original albums – their producer told me I wouldn’t be able to do it!” Watch how the Waves eMotion LV1 Classic console enables FOH engineer Andrew Peters (Dragonforce, Trivium, Iced Earth) to go all the way when mixing metal icons Queensrÿche on their 2025 world tour.

With over 30 million albums sold worldwide and multiple GRAMMY^® nominations, iconic progressive metal band Queensrÿche is renowned for their innovative sound and intricate live performances. When faced with the task of mixing their 2005 “Origins” tour, in which the band is playing their first two records in their entirety, front-of-house engineer and tour manager Andrew Peters was looking for a setup that would enable him to deliver.

“Early in the prep process,” Andrew shares, “the guys in the band told me, ‘We want to hear every little effect, every delay throw from the album, right there in the live mix.’” Some, like the band’s studio producer, were skeptical he could pull it off. But Andrew believed he could do just that with the LV1 Classic desk: “The sound quality is absolutely stunning. It is a significant step up from other consoles I have used in the past. With the LV1 Classic and the Waves Signature Preamps in the Waves IONIC SoundGrid stageboxes on stage, it’s a whole other beast, making the sound sonically huge. And with the plugin arsenal that integrates so seamlessly with the console, I felt nothing was impossible.”

“The user interface of the LV1 Classic”, he adds, “is incredibly user-friendly. Navigating the system and patching is both straightforward and beneficial. I’ve never encountered a day where I was confused about how to operate something on this console. Even after my first use, moving around the system became second nature, like clockwork.”

“I’m using the zero-latency Curves Equator Live on a lot of my sources.”

Andrew highlights the benefits of having integrated Waves plugins in the LV1 Classic, stating a few of his must-have processors: “I use the H-Comp Hybrid Compressor as the perfect buss compressor for drums. My go-to key vocal delay, which I use in almost every song to replicate the band’s albums to accuracy, is the Waves H-Delay. Using the Waves Space Rider on my vocal reverb gives my singer and backing vocals just the right amount of space and sauce. I insert JJP Drums and the Vitamin Sonic Enhancer on my toms to give it that extra snap and attack, making the toms always present in the mix. The Magma Tube Channel Strip always gets the job done on my bass channel for that rich analog sound, and I rely on the Q10 Equalizer on the majority of my channels as the ultimate multiband parametric EQ. Also, lately I’ve started using the zero-latency Live version of the Curves Equator plugin to handle a lot of my sources.”

“Various people, including some well-known musicians,” Andrew shares, “have told me that while other performances at some of the venues we’ve played at sounded problematic, the Queensrÿche performance was the best-sounding show they had ever witnessed at those venues.”

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