Late 2011 saw the annual finals of the Halıcı Computer Aided Composition Contest held at the Babylon venue in Istanbul. Ensuring that the finalists’ live performances sounded their best was a DiGiCo SD9 console.
Sponsored by Halıcı, one of Turkey’s leading software companies, the contest has been run for the past 18 years. Open to all amateur and professional composers, the competition’s main aim is to give entrants the opportunity to showcase their songwriting talents to both the national and international music industry.
16 finalists were selected from 78 entries, who then performed live at Babylon in front of a distinguished jury of Turkish music, arts and technology professionals.
Elit Light & Sound Technologies, DiGiCo’s Turkish distributor, supplied the SD9. “The snapshot feature made mixing 16 different performances very straightforward,” says Elit’s Emre Defne.
“There was only a short time between each act, so it was important to change the mixer’s settings very quickly. The event included a concert by The XYZ Project after the awards and the SD9 was pre-programmed for their performance as well.”
The public had been voting for their favourite of the 16 songs on the competition’s web site and these votes were added to the jury’s vote to reach the final result.
Emre concludes, “The winner was Utar Artun’s The Girl Who Has Chocolate Eyes, but the SD9 gave all the finalists a taste of what it was like to perform in a truly professional situation.”
