The Edmond, Oklahoma Public School District, one of the fastest-growing districts in the state, recently equipped the performing arts centers at Edmond North High School, Edmond Memorial High School and Santa Fe High School with DiGiCo SD9T consoles at front of house, all fitted with the platform’s theater software package.
Anthony Risi, the technical director at Edmond Memorial High School and a veteran theater audio engineer and supervisor, had an encounter with the DiGiCo SD7T console at the Oklahoma City Civic Center Music Hall several years ago that convinced him that SD-Range desks would provide the high school venues with the desired audio performance while preparing theatre arts students with a mixing tool they’re likely to encounter at the university level and later in their professional careers.
“I had the pleasure of being able to spend some time working on the SD7T at the Civic Center, and I also got to talk to Broadway sound designers and touring professionals there, and it was clear that the SD-Range is the console platform of choice in theater,” he says. Thatresulted in the acquisition of three SD9T consoles, along with two D2-Racks per desk, one in the FOH position for connecting with the venue’s wireless microphones and one “rolling” rack deployed as needed.
The consoles were sold through locally-based AVL Systems Design, which also updated the three auditoriums’ lighting and other audio systems over the course of the last two years, with the current school year the first in which all three locations had the same consoles.
“The DiGiCo consoles have been a great addition to the schools’ theater departments and the auditoriums,” Risi adds. “The consoles themselves sound great and have so much functionality, but the ‘T’ theater software package is what really puts them over the top.”
He notes that after a brief training session with DiGiCo’s Matt Larson he was able, in turn, to train his colleagues at the other two high schools, McKeever Arnold and Chet Rogers, on them. The students reportedly took to them just as easily, and, in some cases, even more quickly.
“I had one student that I sat down with at the Santa Fe High School Performing Arts Center and briefly explained the basics of building a scene, which microphones need to be on and when in the scene and so on, and taught him basic programming of the console,” he says. “He took that and in an hour had built the entire show by himself! The console is that well laid out and intuitive.”
Risi has linked the console at Edmond Memorial High School to his iPad through the school’s Wi-Fi network, and says he plans to implement that in the other schools in the near future. “The SD9Ts are a great investment for a school in so many ways,” he concludes. “The experience of using them will stay with many of these students for years to come.”
