Half-funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the 650,000 project included new dressing rooms and public cloakrooms, upgraded entrance facilities, an improved electrical system, a higher stage and all-new stage lighting and sound.
The venue is almost constantly in use by performances which showcase a wide range of local, national and international culture, from rock concerts to folk music. This variety of use was a key factor in specifying a new system, as was the requirement that the front of house multicore be routed around the edge of the auditorium. With these in mind, equipment supplier and installer Milan Acústica specified a high quality Yamaha system, distributed via EtherSound to a Nexo loudspeaker system.
"Milan Acústica already knew the PM5D, which they really like the sound of, although this installation didn't need a console of that size," says Jacinto López of Yamaha Music Europe Ibérica. "It was also very important to have a console which any sound engineer could walk up to and use in the shortest time possible."
Given the long distance that the multicore had to cover, a digital solution was the best option. Milan Acústica chose an EtherSound-based system comprising a Yamaha M7CL-48ES mixing console with six AD8HR remote mic preamps, an NAI48-ESnetwork interface and two DA824 digital-analogue converters.
"Audio quality was very important, but the PA system must not intrude on sight lines. The appearance of the stage had to be clean and open," López continues. "To achieve this the loudspeaker system comprises six Nexo GEO-S per side, with PS8and PS10 front fills installed on the lighting truss and four PS15 side-fills.
"A Nexo NX242 speaker processor controls the system, meaning that the M7CL-48ESEtherSound output is fed straight to the system, without going through any unnecessary AD / DA conversion. This ensures that the audio quality is as high as it possibly can be."
(Jim Evans)
