EAST
SYRACUSE, New York — Like many high schools across the country, the audio
console for East Syracuse-Minoa High School’s auditorium needed to be replaced.
Like most high schools these days, the available budget was limited. Sound
contractor Brown Sound Equipment Corp. of East Syracuse, New York helped the
school achieve its goal with the installation of a HARMAN Soundcraft Si Compact
32 digital console, which not only delivers better performance but was easier
to install—and provided additional benefits not envisioned at the project’s
inception.
“Originally the
district had budgeted for a 32-channel analog console—but they wanted to run 44
channels of wired and wireless mics from the stage,” said Jim Messinger,
co-owner of Brown Sound. “The original idea meant running lots of copper from
the stage with fan-outs at the board, with the person at the console manually
patching in whatever inputs were needed for each particular event. We knew
there was a better solution out there.”
Working with David
Dusman of Sigmet, Soundcraft’s regional sales rep firm, Messinger took a look
at the Si Compact 32. “It was apparent this was the right solution, was within
our budget and would enable us to upgrade from analog to digital,” Messinger
said. The upgrade was part of an overall remodeling of the auditorium’s audio
capabilities, brought to fruition under the oversight of Amanda Thomas of
King+King Architects, Syracuse, NY, Jon Helberg, electrical engineer at IBC
Engineering in Rochester, NY and East Syracuse-Minoa High School music director
Steve Culhane.
In order to get 44
channels into the 32-channel Si Compact 32, Brown Sound also opted for a
Soundcraft Compact Stagebox. “We configured the Stagebox to have 48 inputs to
send to the console, with eight returns for the BSS Soundweb London processors
in the stage rack,” Messinger noted. “It connects to the console via two Cat5
cables—a main and a backup—feeding into a MADI card in one of the Si Compact
32’s expansion slots. Using just the two Cat5 cables from the Stagebox to the
console really simplified the installation—we were able to do a lot of the
preliminary work off-site—and saved a great deal of time.”
The operator of the
Si Compact 32 console can choose up to 32 of the microphones he or she wants to
use—more than enough for any school event. Eight outputs from the console are
fed into a Lexicon I-O/FW801S FireWire™ recording interface that’s connected to
an iMac® for 8-track live recording.
“We knew the Si
Compact 32 was small, but we didn’t realize just how much space it saved until
we put it in the Secure Cabinet locking rolltop cabinet that King+King had
specified for the install,” Messinger said. “The cabinet was specified before
we had finalized the decision on the console and the Si Compact 32 just looked
tiny in that huge space. However, this turned out to be an advantage. Originally
we were going to place a combination CD/iPod® player and the
I-O/FW801S under the console where they would have been hard to reach. Instead,
I had room to place them above the console in a ‘bridge’ I constructed, which
makes them a lot easier to access. There’s also room for future expansion if
needed.”
“The
Si Compact 32 really makes sense for this kind of application,” Messenger
concluded. “It really eased the school’s transition from analog to digital, it
fit into our budget and it’s more intuitive than any console we’ve used
before.”
For
more information on Brown Sound Equipment Corp., please visit www.brownsound.com
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