Reel Rock Productions, the parent company of Production Support Group, a full-service production company serving Tallahassee, FL, recently added several QSC TouchMix compact digital mixers to its production and rental inventory.
According to owner Larry Schmidt, Reel Rock selects equipment that includes the features, function and fit to meet the creative goals that they need to accomplish for their clients. One of the biggest determining factors in the decision to choose a mixer is how much real estate is available at the front of house mix position.
“Ideally, we need to be able to have the smallest equipment footprint possible for a space and still have all the functionality and all the bells and whistles that we need to accomplish the job,” Schmidt explains. “TouchMix has all the functionality and features that I need for a major event, with an extremely friendly user interface, in a remarkably small footprint. The attractive price point for a mixer with such a complete feature set was also a major determining factor. Adding TouchMix was pretty much a no-brainer.”
Reel Rock Productions was founded 1980 when Schmidt decided to join the music industry, favoring the technical production side to the performance side. Back then, after the band he was playing in broke up, he started renting their equipment to other bands, working out of his van.
Today Reel Rock serves clients around the country, with over 21,000 square feet of space, and handling everything from event design, production, staging, electrical distribution, audio, video, lighting and as well as full service and rentals.
“What keeps me going in my business is the creativity. And in my business, the one with the most toys wins,” Schmidt says. “The equipment that we choose is an essential part of our creation of different environmentsfor our clients – our business is not cookie cutter, and we have to take a creative vision and make it a reality, and deliver the best events for clients of all sizes.”
He also emphasizes the importance of equipment he chooses not interfering with the mood and setting that Reel Rock creates for an event: “We do events in all sorts of unusual places, like plantations and museums, and it’s really important to our customers that we keep equipment in the background, so not to kill the setting.
“TouchMix allows us to preserve the environment that we create for our customers – allowing the attendees to believe in and immerse themselves in the event—it helps bring us one step closer to the magic that we need for a great event.”
Recent projects include designing and implementing Florida State University’s homecoming, a large futuristic corporate meeting projecting forward to the year 2020, and the Bassmaster Classic, the largest freshwater fishing tournament in the world that is televised on ESPN. The company was also named “Hometown Hero Sound Company of the Year” for North America in 2011.
