Glasgow’s Royal Conservatoire of Scotland has installed a Midas PRO6 live audio system in a major refit to its main theatre. The desk was selected after a rigorous evaluation of digital consoles.
“We strive to be the best for teaching all aspects of theatre to our students,” says RCS technician Gerrie Victor. “We already have some of the best lighting consoles in the world and wanted to get the same standard for our sound system. We want our students to learn on the best equipment available.
“We tried most of the digital consoles on the market, and after comparing them all, Midas was top of our list. When we realised that we could afford the PRO6, the choice was easy.”
The PRO6 is mainly located in the control room of the Conservatoire’s main theatre, but can also be moved out into the auditorium or to any of the five venues around the building, which range in capacity from 355 to 128.
“Because we are a school for music, drama, digital film and TV, ballet, technical production etc, we put on a vast amount of different shows, from rock ‘n’ roll to opera, and it doesn’t matter what you throw at it, the PRO6 can handle it,” continues Victor. “We use the PRO6 for anything from a production requiring one microphone and a CD player to a full musical theatre production to pantomime, Scottish music and jazz gigs or even a film screening that requires a surround sound system.”
“Our I/O boxes are in flight cases, so we treat the PRO6 as a touring console. This gives students the opportunity to learn how to load in and out and start from scratch.”
The PRO6 is being used in tandem with the theatre’s new sound system that can run on 12 separate analogue sends.
“This is great for us, because now we can enhance the theatre experience by having sound effects coming from anywhere in the auditorium,” says Victor. “Using the PRO6 makes this easy, because with so many mix busses at our disposal we don’t need to sacrifice any aux sends to use the main system to full capacity while also using stage monitors.”
“We can also connect one of our projectors and have a full surround sound system when the digital film and television students have their showings.”
The PRO6’s on board effects and dynamics are also adding to the teaching and live performance experience alike.
“The different types of compressors are a great teaching tool as well as sounding really good,” says Victor. “The POPulation Groups are unique and a very user-friendly feature that make navigation around all the input channels very easy. As for sound, the mic pre amps are a standout feature and typical Midas quality; they sound amazing and it’s a joy to turn the pot and not experience any clicking from a digital component.”
Victor is also finding the Klark Teknik DN9331 Rapide graphic controller another great teaching tool. “You don’t have to flip to your faders to get to the graphic, which makes finding frequencies much quicker,” he says. “We’ve been using the system on a wide range of productions, and so far it has performed above our expectations.”
