PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania
— The Benedum Center, a
project of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust and a renowned performing arts venue
in the heart of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania's cultural district, recently added a
HARMAN Studer Vista 5 digital audio mixing console with 42 faders to support a
variety of theatrical productions and live music performances. The console was
purchased through New York-based Sound Associates (www.soundassociates.com).
Chris
Evans, House Sound Engineer for the Benedum Center, first saw the Vista series
of consoles at the AES Convention in San Francisco in 2010. Evans, who has been
with the Center since its renovation and re-branding in 1987, ultimately chose
the Vista 5 because he believed no other board felt closest to analog.
“The
relationship I have with HARMAN also helped,” Evans said. “After a valuable
discussion with Studer, who were very helpful in navigating the system, it felt
like the right choice."
During the
summer, the Benedum Center hosts at least one performance per day—a very busy
schedule with little time to adjust to a new console. “The Vista 5 was easy to
install and is even easier to use. More importantly, it sounds great,” Evans
noted. “The transition to the Vista 5 has been seamless and it’s given me
greater flexibility with far less hassle than our previous analog board.”
With a variety
of performances and acts hosted by the Center including Blue Man Group, Fiddler on the Roof, A Chorus Line and more
(including a recent performance by The Beach Boys), the ability to move audio
around the building is something that Evans relies on constantly. "I can
patch something downstage right to FOH and go through the system without having
to touch the console,” Evans stated. “It can operate as a mixing console and
routing matrix. The Vistonics™ surface is so easy to navigate. I also use all
the built-in features, from compressors to EQ to delay."
Evans also
noted the console’s Snapshot function as a key asset during live events. "I've
done a number of shows where there are two or three different bands, so I am
able to save a snapshot of each band’s settings and be ready to go with my
input list,” he said. “It's always set up as either I or the touring engineer
left it."
During the
Center's own theater and opera productions, the Vista 5’s cue list has been
another great asset for Evans. “It's easy to program and I use it extensively,”
Evans noted. “We included two racks of 48 channels of DSP which I can put
anywhere with additional fibers if needed. This is a real flexible solution for
what we are doing."
Since the
purchase of the Vista 5, everyone at the Benedum Center has been pleased with
the console. "Studer's support is on a whole other level, it's easy for me
to do my work and count on the performance of their products," Evans
concluded. "The value of the Vista 5 was apparent immediately and the
whole team here adapted to it right away.”
For more information on the Benedum Center for the
Performing Arts, please visit www.trustarts.org
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