GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan
— Northview High School in Grand
Rapids, Michigan has a dedicated music and arts building, the Max Colley Jr.
Performing Arts Center, which has been open since 1998 and houses a 750-seat
auditorium used for concerts, plays, musicals and other events. After 15 years,
the limitations of the center’s original live sound console were becoming all
too apparent, prompting an upgrade to a HARMAN Soundcraft Si Performer 3
32-channel digital console with built-in DMX lighting control.
The
school wanted to make the move from an analog to a digital console, but more
importantly, it needed many more inputs than the previous console could provide.
“Over the years we’ve grown to where we use 20 wireless microphones, plus area
microphones for the chorus and more for our larger musical productions—and by
the time we’d get to miking the pit band we had run out of inputs,” said
Michael Frank, Performing Arts Center Director at “The Max.” “We would have to
patch in a second mixing board for the pit band, fed into an input of the main
console. This got ugly as we couldn’t mix the individual instruments in the pit
band the way we needed to for monitors and didn’t have enough control of the
final mix.”
Michael
also wanted a console that wouldn’t take up more space since there was limited
room in the auditorium’s control booth. After doing his homework, and working
with Bob McLaughlin of local dealer Central Interconnect, Frank determined the
Soundcraft Si Performer 3 digital live sound console was the best solution,
used with a 32-input Soundcraft Compact Stagebox.
“I
was impressed by what the Si Performer 3 offered for the price,” Frank said.
“What you get for what you pay for is incredible.”
Frank
set up the Si Performer 3 console in the control booth and the Compact Stagebox
on the auditorium’s stage, using just two Cat5 cables to connect them together.
This allows the wireless microphone receivers to be placed right next to him by
the Si Performer 3 in case there’s an issue where he might have to swap out a
mic channel, and the convenience of placing the Compact Stagebox right by the
stage where additional mics can be easily connected.
The
Soundcraft Si Performer 3 provided another benefit Frank hadn’t even considered
at first. The console is so easy to use and understand that he’s now training
students on how to use the console, to the point where they can run the show
and Frank said he “doesn’t have to do anything but watch.”
“In
fact, with the training they receive with me, six of my students have gone on
to work with the local stagehands union and a number of them have gone on to
college as Technical Theater Majors,” he added.
In
particular, Michael and his students like the Si Performer 3’s FaderGlow™
color-coded faders, the ability to choose from 14 mix outs and the built-in DMX
512 lighting control. During smaller productions and lectures, just one person
can handle both sound and lighting.
“The
Soundcraft Si Performer 3 is exactly what we needed—we now have total control
over all the sound and all the lighting,” Frank noted.
0 comments:
Post a Comment