The production has made a spectacular debut in Italy where it is currently playing all major Italian cities before heading to New York and Broadway in October. Italian rental company and theatre specialists, Fox Sound Service, furnished all the audio and lighting equipment for the show, including an InnovaSON Sy48 compact digital console for monitoring requirements.
The show actually started with an analogue console on monitors, but for a number of reasons the decision was made to move over to digital. Monitor engineer Stefano del Vecchio was understandably nervous about the transition as this would be his first experience with a digital console, but he was quickly reassured and then delighted by the ease of use and the facilities of the Sy48. "Whether I liked it or not, I was going to have to make the transition to digital sooner or later," confirmed del Vecchio. "I'd reached the limits of the possibilities on the analogue console I was using, yet I still needed more from the desk. Unless I went for an analogue console that was physically bigger and therefore offered more capacity, the only option left was digital. The Sy48 enabled me to remain with the same physical footprint (in fact, it was even smaller) yet offered me everything I needed and more in terms of inputs and features. I just couldn't argue with that!"
Furthermore, he found using the desk to be a real pleasure. "It's simple and intuitive - I was up and running in no time, and the more I used it, the more I wanted to use it," he says. "I had a great time discovering all the new functions and putting them to use!" Del Vecchio particularly appreciated the assignable faders, the powerful input and output patch capabilities, and the OverRam function, a great time-saving utility which allows you copy parameter changes in RAM without having to modify all of the pages individually. He also commented that the audio quality is exceptional; the parametric EQs sound great and that the state-of-the-art mic preamplifiers are "much better than on many professional analogue consoles."
"In conclusion, I'd say that our move from analogue to digital has been nothing but positive," he says. "My initial misgivings simply evaporated as soon as I started using the desk. The sensitivity of the EQs, the possibility of having all the parameters under control without menus or layers, and the sheer problem-solving abilities of the console made using the Sy48 one of the most exciting and innovative experiences in my ten years as a sound engineer."
(Chris Henry)
