Date: September 2006

DIGICO D1 LIVE HELPS BRING THE BBC PROMS TO THE MASSES

Between mid-July and early September each year, the climax of the British summer is marked by the BBC’s series of promenade concerts performed in, and broadcast from, several London venues. The Proms, as the concerts are known, have been taking place annually for 111 years and the BBC has sponsored the event since 1927, apart for a two year break in 1940/41.

Today the Proms takes in a wide variety of classical music performed in a range of settings, from the outdoor Proms In The Park to the triumphal Last Night of the Proms, where autumn is ushered in to the strident strains of Rule Britannia, Land Of Hope and Glory, Jerusalem and dozens of enthusiastically-waved union flags which fill the Royal Albert Hall.

Sound By Design has been providing sound reinforcement services to the Proms since 2000, this year working on about half of the 73 concerts. As well as the Royal Albert Hall - where SBD is the resident audio contractor - the company is also providing equipment and/or engineering support at the Royal Geographical Society and Cadogan Hall.

But 2006 also marks a notable first for SBD, as it’s the first time the company will be providing all-digital sound reinforcement with DiGiCo consoles at the heart of the system. In fact, SBD has purchased two entire DiGiCo D1 Live 48 MiNi-DR systems.

“The Proms requires a large number of channels from stage to PA. We supply the stage rack and the BBC takes the auxiliary feed to the truck,” says SBD’s Phil Wright. “With the BBC having purchased a Studer D950 digital desk for its flagship digital sound vehicle, we decided that it was far more cost effective to ditch the 130 channels of analogue splitters required for the Proms season and use a MADI split where necessary.”
“The DiGiCo consoles are the first choice I would use instead of an analogue console for the discreet classical work that we do,” he continues. “They sound transparent enough for that kind of work, plus the footprint means that we can spec a single high spec board where previously we might have had to use submixers, because usually the desk has to be kept discrete in those kind of concert environments.”

A unique challenge of the Proms is the sheer number of concerts that takes place in eight weeks, often two per day, with touring orchestra schedules to accommodate. This often means a show might have to rehearse in the middle of the night or the middle of the day, and it can be days before the performance itself.

The DiGiCo D1 Live offers a huge advantage because, where SBD used to have to keep multiple analogue consoles and rotate them, the engineers can now just save the settings, then move on to a completely different rehearsal or concert, all of which can be instantly recalled. Warehouse prep time with the console is also kept to a minimum, as engineers can author sessions on a laptop without the console needing to be present.

So, how is the first Proms season going for Sound By Design using its DiGiCo D1 Lives?
“The concerts have all gone very well,” says Phil. “A particular highlight was a performance of Steve Reich's Music for Mallets & Drumming, which received critical acclaim. We were able to take the consoles and monitor system into a week of production rehearsals and snapshot all of the movements - it made a huge difference to the performance because we could concentrate on balancing rather than re-sets. And DiGiCo’s technical support has been second to none - Roger Wood and Tony Crocker are awesome!”

[ENDS]

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Web: www.digiconsoles.com

Sarah James at Gasoline Media
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