DIGICO D5 LIVE HELPS UKRAINE’S INDEPENDENCE CELEBRATIONS
To celebrate the 17th anniversary of the country’s independence, the Ukraine organised a major event in the capital city of Kyiv (Kiev). Ukrainian rental company Sendi saw this as the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the powers of the company’s newly-purchased DiGiCo D5 console.
Taking place in Independence Square (the focus of the country’s move to independence in 1991), the open air event attracted over 150,000 people to formal celebrations and a military parade in the morning, followed by an afternoon and evening of live music. This consisted of three parts - traditional Ukrainian folk music performed by eight folk groups, a set by local ten-piece pop act Minus One and sets by five different Ukrainian rock bands.
Sendi’s DiGiCo D5 Live 112EX console was used to mix both Front of House and monitors and was the very first time a D5 has been used in the country. Configured with 68 inputs, these included nine channels of playback for the pop segment of the show. From the D5’s mixer matrix, outputs were also sent to an outside broadcast facility as the show was recorded for television and radio.
“The event was complicated, as it featured a wide range of different acts and artists who were performing non-stop, says Sendi partner Svitlana Novikova. “But thanks to the D5 we were able to do very quick changeovers between acts, which was really important.”
This was achieved by programming 16 snapshots on the console, instantly reconfiguring it for each performer and keeping changeover times to an absolute minimum and was further aided by the quality of the D5’s onboard effects, meaning that no outboard processing was necessary.
“As well as the excellent sound quality, what we like most about the D5 Live is its flexibility and very quick adjustment of the monitor lines,” says Sendi sound director Serhiy Tsesarenko. “It makes live shows with multiple artists so much more efficient than processing with an analogue console.
“In addition, none of the available analogue consoles can offer that many channels. Before we had the D5, we were supposed to combine two or three analogue consoles for such events. We also had to bring a lot of additional processors and effects. It required a huge amount of hard work for the sound crew and the stage servicing was very complicated.”
Of course reliability was also a key factor at the Independence Day celebrations, given the national importance of the event. But the console performed faultlessly and its ease of use meant that, even without extensive experience of using DiGiCo consoles, the members of Sendi’s crew had no problems.
“This event was very exciting for us,” says Sendi senior partner and General Director Mykola Drik. “Firstly, it acted as a kind of formal presentation of the D5 console for the Ukrainian show business community. And, even though we didn’t have long-term experience of working with it before, everything went extremely well! “
“We were pleasantly surprised that a number of the sound engineers for the acts performing at the event already had very positive experiences of working with the D5 Live in Europe. All of them said they think it is a great purchase for us.”
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