provided DNS with a mixing solution for both FOH and monitors that is about as flexible technical team could wish for. The SD7T is very accessible

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2 SD7T Brings 21st Century S Norway s Oldest Theatre With its origins dating back to the 1850s, Den Nationale Scene (DNS, or The National Theatre) is Norway s oldest permanent theatre. Now, with the installation of a DiGiCo SD7T mixing console, the venue has become a true 21st century facility. Bergen s DNS puts on around 20 productions each year, which include international and national classics, musicals, contemporary drama and family shows. The venue s biggest space is the 450-capacity Store Scene (Main Stage), where the SD7T was recently installed by Oslo-based Bright A/S. Front of House sound is mixed to a Meyer system, while an Aviom card inthe console feeds to the monitor system for production musicians, etc. We have had a variety of different digital consoles over the past 15 years, so we had a good idea of what kind of the SD7T s onboard effects features we wanted (and also engines, including EQ and those we did not), says DNS delays for the Meyer system. Head of Sound Bjarte Våge. Meanwhile, the auto-update The SD7T has all the features function and availability of the we were looking for - the theatre EX-007 extender wing has Having two workspaces operating simultaneously, lots of inputs and outputs, theatre-friendly software and a clear, easy metering overview made it the ideal choice. software has all the functions that we had been missing for the past 10 years! provided DNS with a mixing solution for both FOH and monitors that is about as flexible Having two workspaces and future-proof as the theatre s operating simultaneously, lots of inputs and outputs, theatrefriendly technical team could wish for. The SD7T is very accessible software and a clear, and straightforward to get easy metering overview made it started with. A user can the ideal choice. We also really like the speed at which you are able to update scenes and cues. Most processing is done using grasp the basic functions very quickly, says Bjarte. Truls Birkeland (our local dealer in Norway) was extremely helpful and responsive during the installation and training process. That learning process for the more advanced functions is all part of the luxury of having such an advanced console!

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4 SD7T Gives Addams Family

5 Sound High Values The DiGiCo SD7T has already made an impact on Broadway, with its use on the musical adaptation of The Addams Family. Playing since April 2010 to full houses and excellent reviews, the show s sound designer company Acme Sound Partners has used DiGiCo consoles on a wide range of successful stage productions. We had been following the SD7 s progress, and keeping a close watch on the theatre software development, through our friends in the UK at Autograph Sound, says Acme s Nevin Steinberg. The SD7T provides us with high levels of resolution, extension and ease-of-use in console control, which we are most concerned with - control groups, delay, input/output routing, extensive matrixing, etc. The console was supplied by Masque Sound and utilises over 100 inputs - 25 wireless microphones, 52 for the orchestra, 18 for sound effects and 12 for auxiliary systems. 99 outputs include 53 to the distributed house system and 46 for bussing and matrix inputs. We love the auto-update feature for cueing, says Nevin. The show has nearly 200 cues, so tracking through all the changes we make at any given moment would be impossible. The feature means we can just grab a knob and keep going. We make a lot of input delay time changes, sometimes even within a scene. Auto-update s smart handling of various control points makes it very intuitive and transparent to use. Another nice tool is the multiband processing on all the EQ strips, he continues. The console s compressors and gates perform superbly well, while we use Aliases extensively for alternative input/ output routing or special EQ / dynamics processing tracking, such as wireless EQ for costumes and hats, or dynamics processing on drum mics for traditional vs. pop tunes. The console macros are also very useful, for both big gestures like full console muting and small ones like choosing alternate inputs for emergency backup microphones. Finally, we make good use of 24 control groups on this show for high-resolution active control of the orchestra mix. On top of everything, the audio quality of the DiGiCo consoles continues to be extremely high. Sonically the SD7T is very clean and warm.

6 Austrian Theatre Enjoys The Sound of Music With DiGiCo Located in the Austrian spa town of Baden, the Buehne Baden Theatre hosts a wide array of flexibility and good sound, while the enormously powerful cue list, combined with the aliases, ancsics. Compared to other consoles, you get a lot more for your money with the SD7T. In fact, for me no other it only took a few hours of training from TON Eichinger s Othmar Eichinger before Joerg and Andreas productions, from plays, operas and is just what we need for theatre product offers comparable processing got straight to work on a show. musicals to symphony concerts, big productions and musicals, says Joerg power, channel and auxiliary count. Most functions are self- bands and rock concerts. Accom- Humer, one of the theatre s two chief The fact that you have no external explanatory and the overview is modating such a variety of shows is a sound engineers. DSP racks, but get double power excellent - perfect labelling and the challenge for the theatre s sound de- We needed a powerful desk with a supplies, double DSPs and double changing colours of controls make partment, but one which has been sig- small footprint and the SD7T proved to computers inside a console just 1.5 m everything easier, Joerg continues. nificantly eased with a DiGiCo SD7T. be just the right tool, adds Joerg s fel- wide speaks for itself. And on top of I really like the fact that all the We specified the SD7T for its low chief sound engineer Andreas Iv- all that, it s very cool! necessary controls are on the surface. Supplied by DiGiCo s Austrian We don t get lost on parameter pages distributor, TON Eichinger or deep menu structures. And there Professional Sound Systems, are always several ways to complete a the SD7T was easily configured task, adds Andreas. with the theatre s existing PA, all Smaller shows can be easily speakers being run via the console s handled by a single engineer, while on-board matrix. on bigger productions one engineer Never before have we had a delay mixes vocals while the other mixes on every matrix nodal point. Now the instruments and effects. This is speaker setup is much quicker, while only possible because of the SD7T s we can be more creative. Indeed, we independent input surfaces, two have found that we can achieve better independent solo busses and the sound using less EQ than with our custom fader banks. previous analogue desk, says Joerg. It s the ideal solution for the huge The SD7T s ease of use meant that variety of productions we stage.

7 Boards For The Bard The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has recently completed a multimillion pound project to restore and refurbish the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) and adjacent Swan Theatre at its home in Stratfordupon-Avon. Making the most of the state-of-the-art venues is now the RSC s priority, which is why DiGiCo consoles take pride of place. The RSC has a long relationship with DiGiCo, using one of the first D5Ts in the RST prior to the four year refurbishment project. A second example was bought for the temporary Courtyard Theatre, which allowed the RSC to continue staging productions while the two main venues were rebuilt. Now the project is complete, that second D5T will be the main desk in the Swan Theatre, the original D5T is in the Camden Roundhouse for the RSC s London season and the flagship RST has seen the installation of a brand new SD7T. The revamped theatres reopened at the beginning of December 2010, with the SD7T being installed by Stage Electrics - who installed all of the sound infrastructure and supplied most of the equipment - shortly beforehand. Our engineers have a lot of experience with the D5T and the SD7T s operating system is very similar, so we didn t need much time to get to grips with it, says RSC head of sound Jeremy Dunn. Stage Electrics literally rolled the desk in and it was immediately up and running. He continues, The consoles are used mostly by our in-house engineers and sound designers. DiGiCo is now becoming the industry standard for professional theatre, so when we do have visiting engineers and sound designers there is no need to bring in a different board. We have run up to nine different Shakespeare plays in the same theatre in the course of one week - loading each show file is so much easier and reliable than resetting the desk from paper plots each time. Although the operating system is similar to the D5T, the SD7T does, of course, feature a number of differences. But these are all things that the RSC team has got to grips with quickly and are finding extremely useful for the bigger of the two venues. We have found the scope settings and function names advantageous, as well as the individual fade times, says Jeremy. The extra MADI ports allow us to directly connect Macs fitted with MADI cards for sound effects and recording, while the extra AES, Line and Mic I/O at the rear of the console are a welcome addition for those little extras that always end up nearby. Our engineers have a lot of experience with the D5T and the SD7T s operating system is very similar, so we didn t need much time to get to grips with it. As with the D5T, we have found the audio transparency and crystal clarity of the SD7T to be second to none. In addition, we have always enjoyed the support of everyone at DiGiCo.

8 SD7T Features On Lyttleton Theatre s South The Lyttleton Theatre of London s National Theatre is a prolific hotbed of UK use a D1 console for outdoor productions in our Theatre Square venue, says Lyttleton from mixing Front of House on big musicals to just doing playback of sound effects, but would save costs to rock n roll, hence the introduction of the D5T console in 2003 and, subsequently, the SD7T application stage creativity, which means its Theatre sound manager Yvonne by meaning we didn t have to hire specific software. technical team has to cope with changing Gilbert. So we had prior knowledge anything else in for the big shows. Having that inherent theatre- between very different productions on of the user interface. But the truth is, We couldn t find any others that had friendliness in the operating system an almost nightly basis. With a DiGiCo we looked at a lot of digital consoles enough channels, or whose software was a major selling point, says Yvonne. SD7T installed in the South Bank and none seemed to do the job we was so theatre friendly. DiGiCo has huge theatrical experience premises, life is now a little easier. wanted as well as the SD7T. The latter is a key point. DiGiCo has and we were one of the first customers We have a connection with We needed a console that would long understood that theatre shows for the SD7T software. DiGiCo because we often give us a wide range of possibilities, are operated in a very different way Another key advantage for Yvonne

9 SD7T Roars With The Lion King Bank Shows and her team is the SD7T s physical extremely flexible, and, with ongoing weight - or lack of it. upgrades to the software, it makes for We have a limited staff and a long-term investment. need to be able to regularly move Used on some of the Lyttleton s the console from the usual Front of most prestigious shows, including House position in the auditorium, the Olivier Award-winning August: back into the control room and vice Osage County, Burnt By The Sun versa, she continues. and The Pitmen Painters, the DiGiCo We have a fibre optic loop and SD7T has already made a major DiGiCo mini racks installed throughout contribution to rave reviews by the building. Having the ability to move critics and audiences alike. the console makes the audio system Recently, sound designer John Shivers has played a key role in the installation of DiGiCo SD7Ts on several of Disney s The Lion King theatrical productions. The combination of power, flexibility and compact footprint has ensured that the SD7T consoles have already had a significant impact on the shows currently in New York, London, Singapore and a US tour. As well as the technical advantages of changing from an analogue to digital console, each production has seen a significant number of audience seats reclaimed in the orchestra seating section. In both New York and London, the changeover was achieved with no loss of shows. The SD7T was set up alongside the old console and the sound team dummy mixed several shows. Then, after a Sunday matinee, the old console was taken out and the SD7T installed in its final position. The Monday (which is not a show day) saw the extra seats go in and final preparations made, with the Tuesday performance onwards mixed on the SD7T. The SD7T is an excellent console and I have been more than happy to specify it on these productions of The Lion King, says John. Its flexibility, The combination of power, flexibility and compact footprint has meant that the SD7T consoles have already had a significant impact on the shows. the quality of its Stealth Digital Processing, small footprint and intuitive user interface have brought many further benefits.

10 Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown It s a book, it s a film, it s a play Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown - a story about women and the men who pursue them - has been a hit in all its forms, the most recent being the stage production at New York s Lincoln Center Theater, directed by Bartlett Sher, still fresh from his Tony Award winning success with Broadway hit, South Pacific. The show involves a complex audio production with sound designer Scott Lehrer, who has worked with the Lincoln Center on and off for almost 20 years and was brought in for Women on the Verge by Sher himself, requiring a mixing console that has a lot of programming flexibility. Because of this need, he turned to DiGiCo s SD7T, supplied by US distributor Autograph A2D. This is the first time I ve used a DiGiCo console on a full-blown theatrical production, reveals Lehrer. But we had tried out an SD7T on one of the New York City Center Encores! shows last year, so I d had my first experience with it then. I knew that, because of the technical complexity of Women On The Verge, I needed to have a console that incorporated a lot of programming flexibility. There aren t that many consoles out there that can do the amount of programming stuff I needed to get done, so it seemed to be the right show to try the SD7T out on, full-blown. The console proved to be extremely flexible and fully met Lehrer s expectations. He was, he says, also lucky enough to have sound engineer Scott Sanders on the show, who is very familiar with DiGiCo products. Having used a DiGiCo D5T for six or seven years, he knows DiGiCo theatrical programming language, says Lehrer. This meant we were able to do a lot of things that, without a really experienced programmer, we wouldn t have been able to do. In fact, I became a real power user of the SD7T in a very short space of time, which I couldn t have done without Scott. Lehrer has found that the advantage of the SD7T comes not from a host of functions that other consoles cannot perform, but from the combination of functions that DiGiCo has put together. I ve used one other manufacturer s digital console a lot, he recalls. And I ve always done my crosspoint matrixes on a digital mix engine that is separate from the console. With the SD7T the delay matrix is on the console, so I could do my system matrixing on the surface which means one less piece of big gear and one less piece of software, which is a great thing. The SD7T has a lot of stuff that other consoles have in varying degrees, but has it more thoroughly. Aliases, for example, I have found to be much more complete and transparent than they have been for me on other consoles. When characters change, whether it be men wearing hats, or people moving he smiles. As far as a whole package into strange environments, we have goes, the SD7T presents a really to change their EQ and settings. powerful set of tools to work with. Being able to recall those alias and It is large in terms of digital consoles, characters playing their different but even so, we only lose around eight roles is really useful. You can drop to ten seats in Broadway terms. If characters into different channels on the production is a hit show, you re I knew that, because of the technical complexity of Women On The Verge, I needed to have a console that incorporated a lot of programming flexibility a cue-by-cue basis and the ability to talking about saving around $250,000 store things either on a cue basis or a on seats and that more than pays for universal basis is really good. Also, the the console in the first year. So size is ability to arrange the console the way significant. That s why so many people you want it means you re not stuck are going over to digital consoles. And with a hardware surface, allowing us for me, the SD7T software makes to change the way things were laid out DiGiCo a great bet. across the console fairly easily, until we got it right for us. A couple of things that are very specific to the SD7T, and that I love, are the multiband dynamics and the dynamic EQ. I really made use of that. For example, some actors have multiple singing voices and you don t want to compress their whole range, maybe just the mid range, or sort out a bit of sibilance. You can recall those sorts things on a cue-by-cue basis and that is really powerful. These days it is hard to justify using a large console on a theatre production. The sound quality is excellent,

11 SD7T is West End Hit for Autograph Sound The DiGiCo SD7T is making a Mother Courage and Her Children major impact on a variety of at the National Theatre gave him an shows in London s West End, additional feeling of security. none more so than Andrew Lloyd Webber s Love Never Dies at the Adelphi Theatre. It was theatre sound specialists Autograph Sound Recording who played a key role in getting the show s Autograph has been working with DiGiCo since the launch of the D5 Live in With the company s unrivalled expertise in theatre sound, it guarantees that productions have a whole extra layer of technical backup. award-winning sound designer Mick is very pro the development Mick Potter, together with assistant of the technology and sound quality, designer Paul Gatehouse and says Duncan. But his associate operator Jo Wredden, on board with the SD7T. Back when we were working on the D5T software with DiGiCo, we invited a group of leading sound designer Paul Gatehouse was also key in switching over to the SD7T. He d used it on another production and had said to Mick that it was a serious player in the market. The SD7T is a big step forwards for theatre sound and the logical development from the D5T... and the EX007 adds a whole new level of functionality 2010 and continues on from the success of Lloyd-Webber s legendary Phantom Of The Opera. It looks set for a long run, with overseas and touring productions almost certain. This is not the only production on Autograph s roster to feature the SD7T. Bobby Aitken is a long-term DiGiCo user, having utilised D5Ts in a number of his audio designs including the massive hits Mamma Mia, Dirty Dancing and We Will Rock You. Flashdance - The Musical is one of his latest shows and one where he has moved on to the SD7T. To commemorate the 25th Anniversary of Les Miserables, Mick musical version of the Wizard of Oz - which opens at the London Palladium in March features another Mick Potter sound design, using both an SD7T, EX-007 and SD8. The SD7T is a big step forward for theatre sound and the logical development from the D5T, concludes Bell. And the EX-007 adds a whole new level of functionality, making the system even more attractive to designers by providing the ability to either use it as a space saving control surface, or to extend the worksurface to cope with the incredibly high numbers of inputs and outputs that theatre sound necessarily involves. designers to get involved. Mick was Yet another factor that helped one of the first people that saw the ensure SD7T s appearance at the mix D5T, but it wasn t the right timing for position was the availability of the him then, says Autograph s Duncan EX-007 extender wing. Bell. I know Mick was concerned However, the timing was about not having enough faders, perfect with the SD7T. The SD7 s says Duncan. When we discussed Potter was asked to design the sound It s proving a great success for considerable credibility within it, I had heard from DiGiCo s James for the 25th Anniversary concert Autograph and for theatre sound the live market made him much Gordon that the EX-007 was just production at the O2 arena. This designers across the world, and more comfortable and knowing round the corner, which made a big stunning concert was mounted for is becoming console of choice for Andrew Bruce, Autograph s founder difference. As a result, I think he was two performances only and featured many designers, some of whom may (pictured here), and Nick Lidster probably one of the first people to two SD7Ts, plus an EX-007, at Front not previously have considered the had already proved the SD7T on use one. of House. DiGiCo option. the highly acclaimed production of Love Never Dies opened in March Finally the new Lloyd-Webber

12 When the professional audio world first set eyes on the DiGiCo D5 Live there was a collective sharp intake of breath. Here was the digital mixing console that gave you the best of analogue working practices and audio finesse with all the versatility and feature richness that the digital environment could offer. A decade on, the SD Series is the new standard setter and its fast, engineer friendly user interface has yet to be beaten. And to many engineers it continues to offer the optimum sonic combination of analogue smoothness and digital clarity. But expectations continue to rise. In a world as competitive for engineers as it is for console owners, you want the best tools you can lay your hands on. You also want a console as well thought out for every major application as it is designed for the art and science of sound engineering. Above all, you want to do more. That s why we ve added yet more depth and versatility to the SD Series, in which the DiGiCo SD7 is complemented by the compact SD8, the ultra compact SD9 and rackmount SD11 and, now, the powerful SD Ten and SD Ten B. What Makes the SD Series different from the D Series and other digital consoles? The SD Series gives you more. More power, more flexibility and more creativity, wrapped in frames which are more serviceable, more compact and more user-friendly than ever. Selected features include: All audio processing on one chip - Stealth Digital Processing From input to output all the audio processing on an SD Series console is carried out on one chip using Super FPGA technology with floating-point processing, resulting in enhanced clarity, unique sound characteristics and a smaller console footprint. The Power of Waves The SD Series is the world s first range of digital mixers to offer the power of Waves SoundGrid as a fully integrated option, complementing the array of built-in Stealth digital effects. Slicker Interface With 15 inch touch screen LCD TFT technology and user defined RGB back lit LCD scribble strips delivering uninterrupted user feedback. Advanced Software UI Building on the fine qualities of over 20 years of digital development, our engineers have delivered a user experience that s even faster, easier and more productive than ever. After the briefest introduction it s clear that the DiGiCo range was designed for audio engineers by audio engineers. Concert Sound U2 360 Tour Permanent Install Wolftrap Arts Centre Houses of Worship Eagle Brook Church Musical Theatre Mother Courage Unit 10, Silverglade Business Park, Leatherhead Road, Chessington, Surrey KT9 2QL Tel: +44 (0) Fax: +44 (0) info@digiconsoles.com Web: