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PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Clyne Media, Inc.
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A singer at front of house: Amanda Davis mixes Moonchild on the Waves LV1 Classic

— On Moonchild’s 2026 world tour, FOH engineer Amanda Davis brings a musician’s ear — and the Waves LV1 Classic — to a band whose sound lives in nuance, dynamic restraint, and intimate vocal texture —

Knoxville, TN, June 8, 2026 — When alternative R&B band Moonchild rolled into metro Atlanta’s Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre on April 9, the audio engineer standing at the front-of-house position wasn’t just running a show; she was also coming home. Amanda Davis — FOH engineer and production manager for the band’s 2026 tour — started her audio career and began honing her craft in Atlanta nearly two decades ago. Since then, Davis has established herself as one of the industry’s most sought-after live sound professionals, serving as FOH engineer for artists including Janelle Monáe, Ella Mai, and Tegan and Sara, and working productions featuring Doja Cat and Jon Batiste, to name a few. As a child, Davis grew up in Memphis — “the home of the blues, Stax Records, Royal Studios,” she notes. She remembers walking around the house with Anita Baker and Chaka Khan in her ears, the legacy artists who built the city’s sound. Her mother put her in piano lessons at three or four. She found her singing voice in seventh grade, took it through high school and into college as a classically trained vocalist studying opera. It was there she realized performance wasn’t the path. Audio engineering was. “I didn’t want to sing anymore, but I still wanted to pursue music,” she recalls. “I literally took a leap of faith and went to audio school at SAE in Atlanta.” At first, she thought she’d become a studio engineer. Long sessions taught her otherwise. A church gig changed the trajectory, and live sound became her passion. Years later, after finding her footing as a self-described “late bloomer” in the craft, Davis stands at FOH with the confidence of someone who has earned every fader move. “I trust God and go after what I want,” she says. “Nothing more, nothing less.” A Musician’s Ear at the Console Davis approaches mixing the way a singer would, because she is one. Her philosophy is disarmingly simple: it’s gotta feel good. “Being a singer created the space for me to figure out my approach to being an [FOH] engineer and what things are supposed to sound like altogether. I consider myself the last member of the band,” Davis says. It sounds modest until you hear what she’s actually doing behind her Waves LV1 Classic Console. She continues, “I’m always looking around at the audience at shows,” she says, “and if everyone is jamming, then I’m doing my job well.” That perspective shapes everything about her mix — particularly with Moonchild, a band whose sound lives in layered nuance, dynamic restraint, and the soft, intimate texture of lead singer Amber Navran’s voice. “The unique challenge with this band is keeping the vocal above the band while maintaining a full mix,” Davis explains. “And I have to pat myself on the back, because I’ve been successful at that — thanks to some specific Waves plugins.” Inside the Mix on her LV1 Classic Translating that vision night after night happens at the console — and Davis’s LV1 Classic setup is built to keep her in the music. Her show file is built the way she’d build any console session — inputs to groups, groups to L/R, FX sends for vocals and instruments, and a custom show layer that puts every fader, plugin, and user key exactly where she needs it. Because Moonchild is a band of multi-instrumentalists, she opts for user keys over snapshots, giving her quick punch-in control when the show breathes in new directions. Her vocal chain tells the story of her taste: R-EQ → CLA-2A → F6 → PSE → Feedback Hunter. Clean, natural, musical — and protected. “Amber has a very unique voice,” she says. “I want to make sure the audience gets what they’re used to hearing on the record.” To keep that vocal in its rightful place, Davis runs a Waves C6 multiband compressor on the band bus, side-chained from her vocal group, so the band gently dips in Amber’s frequency range whenever she enters the mix. On the same band group, she runs the Waves S1 Imager to widen the ensemble, keeping the vocal centered and present. One plugin in particular has become essential to Amanda’s workflow: “Waves’ Feedback Hunter has been my lifesaver. It’s there on my vocal chain to make sure the vocal mic doesn’t feed back even when I get the gain up way high.” Her approach to tone is as direct as her workflow. “I like to keep a natural sound,” she says. “If I walk up to this kick drum and I hear how it sounds acoustically, that’s how it needs to sound out front. The plugins are the sauce.” Why the LV1 Classic Davis came up evaluating consoles the way most working engineers do — judging them by their sound quality, ergonomics, flexibility, reliability, ability to streamline complex workflows in demanding production environments, and ultimately what serves the mix. When the LV1 Classic arrived, offering a classic tactile console build while opening the door to the Waves plugin library that Davis had been building her sound on for years, she took it seriously. “I’m an analog girl in a digital world,” she laughs. “The LV1 Classic gave me a comfortable workflow where I’m not hitting too many buttons to get where I need to go.” What “the workflow” actually means, night after night, is specific. LV1 Classic puts EQ, dynamics, and sends under her hands without menu-diving — important when Moonchild’s arrangements turn on a phrase and she needs to react in real time. Custom show layers let her build the console around the way the band actually plays, instead of working through the desk’s defaults. User keys give her live punch-in moments she’d otherwise lose to scrolling through scenes — necessary when a band of multi-instrumentalists rearranges itself between songs. And the Waves plugin ecosystem lives on the console, not alongside it, so her plugin chains on each and every channel all sit inside the mix she’s building, not in a separate window she has to manage. The combined effect is speed without sacrifice. On a tour where Davis is also the production manager — handling the prep, the freight, the stage plot, the PA tuning — every saved click matters. “For the Moonchild tour specifically, I am production manager as well,” she says. “I did a lot of prep work before the tour so that when we got out here, it’ll be execution time and I could really focus on building a great mix.” With her processing under her fingers and the Waves plugin ecosystem behind every channel, Davis can stay where good FOH engineers belong — listening. Passing It On For Davis, the work doesn’t end at the console. She mentors the next generation of live sound engineers because, as she puts it, “I spent a lot of time figuring this out myself, and I don’t want younger people going through that.” Her advice to mid-level engineers chasing the next level is grounded in fundamentals: “Gain structure and good mic placement will get you very far. We love all the tools, but we can’t build a mix that depends on them. Use your ears — and don't eye-gineer.” For Davis, a successful night isn’t about the gear, the rider, or the room; it’s about a feeling. “If the audience is jamming and feeling good, that's all I need,” she says. “You can't take yourself too seriously. I trust the work I’ve put into this. At this point, it’s just time to have fun and enjoy some good music.”

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Photo file 1: AmandaDavis_Photo1.JPG Photo caption 1: FOH engineer Amanda Davis, shown working at the Waves LV1 Classic Console Photo file 2: AmandaDavis_Photo2.JPG Photo caption 2: FOH engineer Amanda Davis About Waves Audio Ltd.: Waves is the world’s leading developer of audio DSP solutions for music production, recording, mixing, mastering, sound design, post-production, live sound, broadcast, commercial and consumer electronics audio markets. Since its start in the early ‘90s, Waves has developed a comprehensive line of over 240 audio plugins and numerous hardware devices. For its accomplishments, Waves received a Technical Grammy® Award in 2011; an Engineering, Science & Technology Emmy® Award for its Waves Clarity Vx Pro plugin in 2023; and NAMM Technical Excellence & Creativity (TEC) Awards for its Clarity Vx DeReverb Pro plugin in 2024 and eMotion LV1 Classic console in 2026. Additionally, its early flagship plugin, the Q10 equalizer, was selected as an inductee into the TECnology Hall of Fame. Increasingly leveraging pioneering techniques in artificial intelligence, neural networks and machine learning, as well as the company’s three decades of accumulated expertise in psychoacoustics, Waves technologies are being used to improve sound quality in a growing number of market sectors. Around the world, Waves’ award-winning plugins are utilized in the creation of hit records, major motion pictures, and top-selling video games. Additionally, Waves now offers hardware-plus-software solutions (including the revolutionary eMotion LV1 Classic live mixing console) for professional audio markets. The company’s WavesLive division is a leader in the live sound sector, spearheading the development of solutions for all live platforms. Products from Waves Commercial Audio enable A/V system integrators and installers to deliver superior sound quality for corporate, commercial, government, educational, entertainment, sports and house-of-worship applications. Under its Maxx brand, Waves Software Licensing Division is bringing Waves’ award-winning technology into a variety of consumer-facing markets including Mobile, PC, Home AV, Education and Enterprise. Some of the largest and most prestigious global OEM brands have adopted its DSP algorithms to enhance the sound experiences of their consumers. North America Offices: Waves, Inc., 2800 Merchants Drive, Knoxville, TN 37912; Tel: 865-909-9200, Fax: 865-909-9245, Email: info@waves.com,  Web: http://www.waves.com  Corporate Headquarters Israel: Waves Ltd., Azrieli Center, The Triangle Tower, 32nd Floor, Tel Aviv 67023, Israel; Tel: 972-3-608-4000, Fax: 972-3-608-4056, Email: info@waves.com, Web: http://www.waves.com  Waves Public Relations: Clyne Media, Inc., 169-B Belle Forest Circle, Nashville, TN 37221; Tel: 615-662-1616, Email: robert@clynemedia.com, Web: http://www.clynemedia.com

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