Carnival Cruise Lines utilizes Soundcraft Si Compact digital consoles for entertainment systems aboard its fleet of 12 ships, including two with Si Compact 16 consoles, and 10 with an Si Compact 24. There is an accompanying stage box for each console on board.
Erik Zvanut of Dobbs-Stanford, Soundcraft’s regional representative for Florida, suggested the Si Compact series because the layout is similar to an analog board and would be easy for the onboard staff to learn.
“Once I showed everyone the Si Compact series they fell in love with it pretty quickly,” Zvanut says. “The ease of use and the amount of functionality you get with the board is so much for the compact size.”
On each ship, the boards are mostly used in the theater and nightclub space, which offers live band karaoke. “The fact that the board is small and can be transported easily is huge. There isn’t much extra room on each ship, so having the small desk makes it easy to fit in a corner wherever it is needed. Carnival also wanted a desk that was easy to set up right out of the box without the need to retrain staff members,” states Zvanut.
“The price point was perfect. Since the musicians usually operate the sound systems, it’s great to have an easy-to-use board that doesn’t need much background training,” says James Keaton, entertainment audio supervisor for Carnival Cruise Lines. “With a few of the vessels being older, it also helped to connect the stage boxes with CAT5 cable. Much of the copper wire is out of shape, and having the ease of CAT5 allows us to utilize many more inputs and outputs for whatever we may need. We tried to find a universal product that would benefit everyone, and the Si Compact consoles do the trick.”
Many of the settings and features of the Si Compact series benefit Carnival Cruise lines on a daily basis. “Many times we have a group of rotating bands that perform on different vessels,” adds Keaton. “Having the ability to save settings and presets for each group makes the transition between acts very easy. Whoever is operating the desk just needs to upload the settings and they are set to go.”
The addition of the Si Compact consoles is the start of a long-term upgrade to the entire system onboard the vessels. “It’s great that the stage boxes are compatible with the large Vi series consoles. It gives us options to expand in the future, which is our goal,” Keaton says.