Nestling in the City of London is the largest performing arts centre in Europe; the Barbican Centre. It plays host to music from classical to contemporary, theatre, film and art exhibitions, as well as housing a library, three restaurants and a little known, but spectacular conservatory. Last year saw Autograph Sales and Installations deliver two DiGiCo mixing consoles as part of an extensive audio upgrade for the Barbican's concert hall, both of which are being put to use during the EFG London Jazz Festival this November.Our relationship with DiGiCo goes back to before we purchased the SD7 and SD9 we now have, as we have hired an SD7 for past events, recalls Mark Bloxsidge, one of the three Technical Managers at the Barbican, who is responsible for technical provision for concerts and other events hosted through the Barbican Music Department.
Previously, our house console was analogue. It has a beautiful sound and, in fact, we still have it to accommodate those engineers that will only use analogue desks. However, we started to see a change in attitude with the improvement in digital consoles and, with finance available from the City of London who own and operate the Barbican, we were in a position to buy a new Front of House console. And we knew we wanted to go digital!
The whole technical team went through a comprehensive process to decide on the best console for their needs, looking at all the major manufacturers and auditioning a number of products.
Whichever system we went for had to be easy and straightforward enough for our non-sound technicians to set-up and operate, and yet flexible, configurable, and robust enough for our more demanding events, says Tom Shipman, Technical Supervisor specialising in Sound.
We thought that the DiGiCo range was the best sounding and also the most suitable for the way we operate, as it provides flexibility and open-ended networking that suits our needs, adds Mark. One of the criteria was that from time to time we have very large set ups in the hall, with well over 100 channels. For a 2,000-seat concert hall, that's quite good going. Some of the other digital console manufacturers were limited to 96 inputs, and were ruled out for that reason alone.
By the time we had finished the process, it was clear to us that DiGiCo was the best sounding console we had heard. We liked the flexibility of the racks and the way it all hooks together. Having used an SD7 on a couple of occasions, we knew we liked it a lot, but we decided to put it up against the SD5 and do a shoot out between the two. We liked the SD5 very much, particularly for its quiet power supplies and some other aspects, but in the end we decided to go for the SD7, complete with the Waves option, as it gave us the most processing power and flexibility and was a more familiar desk for our clients and visiting FOH engineers.
With a change to the main FOH console confirmed, the decision was then made to change the smaller console in the control booth to DiGiCo as well.
The requirement for the smaller console in the sound control booth was that it should fit seamlessly into any system that was up for consideration, without loss of audio quality or connectivity, continues Tom. For this reason, we decided upon the smaller footprint but incredibly powerful SD9, but with the addition of the optics option and the included D-Rack. This allows us to substitute it for the SD7 at FOH, or leave it in the booth and add it into the optical loop to deal with sub-mixes.
It also gave us more opportunities to train our own crew on the DiGiCo operating system and get them familiar with the way the consoles work, says Mark.
Tom set up a training scenario with the SD9 and the invaluable online training videos, and brought the team in for one-on-one training sessions.
Everyone remarked what a great tool the videos are, and how helpful they are, while I was able to answer any questions that arose, says Tom.
The Barbican s choice of DiGiCo mixing systems, supplied by Autograph Sales & Installations, was integral to a major digital communications and cabling infrastructure upgrade installed at the venue by the same company. This was a very complex audio engineering and design project which was completed without disruption to any part of the Barbican s programme of events, and for which a full report can be found HERE (link to story on AS&I website).
The Barbican's final specification was an SD7, an SD9, an SD-Rack and SD Mini-Rack, both individually flightcased, and an SD Mini-Rack which is permanently installed, providing feeds to the audio system processors in addition to the extensive single and multi-mode fibre, Cat6, and HD-SDI install.
The decision paid dividends on the first day of the EFG London Jazz Festival.
We took the smaller console out of the booth to use as the FOH desk for the Freestage in the Barbican Foyer, where there was a free concert performance every evening of the Festival, prior to the main show in the concert hall, says Mark. This also meant that both venues were being run by DiGiCo for Jazz Voice, the opening concert of the festival, where our own Tom Shipman manned the SD7 -and very good it sounded too!
Jazz Voice, a jazz big band', was fronted by Guy Barker with a line up of guest singers from across the genre, including Dee Dee Bridgewater, Emma Smith and Georgie Fame. The concert was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and streamed live on BBC Arts Online, and is available on BBC iPlayer.
As well as the Barbican's own SD7 at FOH, a second SD7 operated by Emma Wood was hired from Richard Nowell Sound Services for the monitor position, with the two desks digitally linked via an Optocore fibre network, and both the SD-Rack and SD-Mini Rack on stage.
At FOH Tom used the multi-channel' feature and folded the drums away to make as
