Located in the Austrian spa town of Baden, the Buehne Baden Theatre hosts a wide array of productions, from plays, operas and musicals to symphony concerts, big bands and rock concerts.
Accommodating these shows is a challenge for the theatre’s sound department, but one which has been significantly eased with the delivery of a DiGiCo SD7T console.
A feature of this historic, 1700-seat theatre is its excellent acoustics, so any new Front of House console had to match the quality of sound.
The SD7T does just that and has brought many other tools to the table.
“We specified the SD7T for its flexibility and good sound, while the enormously powerful cue list, combined with the aliases, is just what we need for theatre productions and musicals,” says Joerg Humer, one of the theatre’s two chief sound engineers.
“We needed a powerful desk with a small footprint and SD7T proved to be just the right tool,” adds Joerg’s fellow chief sound engineer Andreas Ivancsics.
“Compared to other consoles, you get a lot more for your money with the SD7T. In fact, for me no other product offers comparable processing power, channel and auxiliary count.
“The fact that you have no external DSP racks, but get double power supplies, double DSPs and double computers inside a console just 1.5 m wide speaks for itself. And on top of all that, it’s very cool!”
Supplied by DiGiCo’s Austrian distributor, TON Eichinger Professional Sound Systems, it was straightforward to configure the console with the Theatre’s existing PA, all speakers being run via the SD7’s on-board matrix.
“Never before have we had a delay on every matrix nodal point. Now speaker setup is much quicker, while we can be more creative. Indeed, we have found that we can achieve better sound using less EQ than with our previous analogue desk,” says Joerg.
“We even have a session report on-board, which can be emailed or printed.”
The SD7T’s ease of use meant that it only took a few hours of training from TON Eichinger’s Othmar Eichinger before Joerg and Andreas got straight to work on a show.
“Most functions are self-explanatory and the overview is excellent – perfect labelling and the changing colours of controls make everything easier,” Joerg continues.
“The onboard effects are also very useful for music and theatre work. The reverbs integrate extremely well with any direct signal, allowing us to put sounds in the right perspective and distance.”
“Smaller shows can be easily handled by a single engineer, while on bigger productions one engineer mixes vocals while the other mixes the instruments and effects.”
“This is only possible because of the SD7T’s independent input surfaces, two independent solo busses and the custom fader banks.”
“It’s the ideal solution for the huge variety of productions we stage.”
