Waves Audio LV1 Classic Powers the Savannah Music Festival Across 13 Venues and 61 Artists

	All five stages of the 2026 Savannah Music Festival were standardized with Waves Audio LV1 Classics at front-of-house.

For the 2026 edition of the Savannah Music Festival (SMF), lead festival engineer Brenden Robertson made a calculated bet: Standardize the entire technical footprint of one of the South's most storied festivals on a single console platform. Five Waves Audio LV1 Classics now cover at least six key mix positions across SMF's primary high-production venues -- the Lucas Theatre, the Trustees Theater, and Kehoe Iron Works -- with a sixth floating unit deployed as a backup and utility console for pop-up events and A2 roles.

The scale of the undertaking is significant. Robertson oversees technical operations for 61 artists across 13 venues over a 12-day run, personally mixing 11 of 19 artists at his primary posts. It's a logistical puzzle that, in his view, only works with the right foundation under every engineer's hands.

Robertson states, "In a festival with 13 venues, you can't afford technical friction. When the LV1 Classic launched, I suspected it was the missing piece for SMF. Getting my hands on the actual console surface for a live mix confirmed that Waves had finally married their processing power with a world-class tactile workflow."

Robertson's preparation strategy centers on what he calls the BERA Method -- a unified console architecture designed to eliminate on-site friction before an engineer ever steps behind the desk. A master "springboard" template pre-configures all bussing, matrix routing, and FX chain construction, so that each incoming engineer's job is reduced to building the input layer. The LV1 Classic's Recall Safe and Scope features lock down mission-critical channels -- stage talkbacks, MC lines, house music -- while per-act Snapshots initialize a clean slate for each guest. The 80-channel expanded mode proved equally important. SMF's roots-focused programming -- blues, jazz, and acoustic ensembles that demand high transparency and dynamic range -- can push channel counts quickly when a marquee act hits the stage. Having that headroom available as a festival-wide standard meant no headliner was ever told no.

Robertson's custom layer approach minimized paging during changeovers -- a "Single-Layer Command" philosophy where DCAs, critical input strips, and Matrix faders all share the same surface layer. With 15-minute turnarounds a regular occurrence, that kind of surface speed is not a luxury.

The true test of any festival console isn't how well it works for the house crew -- it's how fast a touring engineer who's never touched it can get a show in the can. At SMF 2026, the LV1 Classic faced that test dozens of times over. Brenndan McGuire, front-of-house engineer for Lucius and a 40-year live sound veteran whose credits include Sufjan Stevens, Feist, and Mac DeMarco, approaches a console the way he approaches music -- as an instrument. His evaluation of the LV1 Classic was immediate and emphatic: the touchscreen was the best he'd encountered in the industry, with a size and responsiveness that allowed him to shape EQ with a precision he'd previously only achieved with rotary encoders. Setting up custom fader layers was quick and intuitive, and after a brief orientation, he spent his time exploring capabilities rather than fighting the interface. He looks forward to working on a Waves desk again.

McGuire remarks, "I came up as a musician first, so I tend to approach a console like an instrument. We have to be able to flow and find a connection, to understand and trust the layout. The LV1's massive touchscreen allows quick access to a multitude of functions in one or two moves -- very intuitive."

Mark Goodell, front-of-house engineer for the Julian Lage Quartet, was a first-time LV1 Classic user who left with a strong interest in expanding his time on the platform. After a very quick learning curve, he felt at home with the console fast -- easily navigating to channel strip EQ and compression functions using the LV1's Channel view. He's now pursuing additional hands-on time at Dale Pro Audio in New York.

Dan Hallas, full-time touring engineer for P.O.D., mixed the festival's closing night - a Miles Davis centennial tribute -- on the LV1 Classic. After getting oriented, he had a strong show and, by his own admission, found it considerably better than the desk he tours with.

Among the more notable LV1 sightings of the festival: the engineer for John Craigie arrived with his own modular rig -- no LV1 console at all, just Waves IONIC stageboxes and a SoundGrid server in a rack, paired with a MacBook Pro and an iPad running MixTwin. He mixed the entire show from the audience, walking the room with his iPad while the rack sat side-stage. Lightweight, self-contained, and fully functional.

Zachariah Karatassos, a house engineer at SMF, had a 90-minute crash course on the LV1 Classic and then went straight into 11 consecutive shows without a single issue. A musician-turned-engineer, Zachariah describes his relationship with a console in terms of flow and connection -- and the LV1 delivered. He found the layout intuitive, the navigation fast, and the touchscreen capable of putting a multitude of functions within one or two moves. He was also able to teach the console to guest engineers on the fly, all of whom came away impressed with the platform.

His standout moment came mixing Kingfish on the Alcons LR24 system -- a dense, high-energy stage where the LV1's preamps and the PA combined to deliver what he called "absolute magic." High intelligibility, every instrument with space to breathe, and a mix he could trust with his eyes closed.

Karatassos notes, "I came up as a musician first, so I tend to approach a console like an instrument. Mixing Kingfish on the LV1 on the Alcons LR24 boxes was my favorite part of the festival -- those preamps with that PA, it was absolute magic. I could close my eyes, trust the gear, and completely immerse myself in the mix."

Lars Petter Kristiansen, engineer for the Tord Gustavsen Trio, was a first-time LV1 Classic user who arrived at SMF with tempered expectations and left genuinely impressed. He found the LV1 Classic easy to understand, praised the user interface and the depth of information available on-screen, and reported nothing but a positive experience. His takeaway was straightforward: he could see himself buying one. He remarked, "This was my first time on the LV1 Classic, and I was positively surprised -- I'd enjoy this desk just as much as anything I've worked on. I could easily end up buying one in the near future."

Robertson's decision to standardize on the LV1 Classic was shaped in part by the festival's previous experience: where the prior year's console platform felt like a step backward for a festival of this pedigree, the LV1 Classic proved an absolute leap forward. All four A1s at SMF 2026 reported strong experiences on the LV1, and three of them -- touring engineers themselves -- said they would be happy to encounter one on a venue rider or bring it out on the road.

For Robertson, the measure of success goes beyond throughput and uptime. The signal he's watching for is the guest engineer who finishes their set, clocks the sonic depth and tactile speed of the LV1 Classic, and starts asking how to get one into their own touring rig. He summed it up: "When a world-class guest engineer finishes their set and immediately starts asking how they can integrate it into their own touring rig -- that's the win."