A new Soundcraft Si Compact 24 has been added to the inventory of South African sound specialist Howard Technologies, after the company purchased the desk from Bloemfontein-based Toms Music.
Set up by Irvin Howard in the year 2000, the company specializes in all aspects of staging and production, and with a growing work roster of multi-act shows, needed a digital desk that was compatible with this type of presentation, and also expandable.
“We operate in the corporate sector doing conferences and concerts — and memorising each set was becoming a challenge,” Howard states. “We also handle a lot of church conferences.”
Howard, whose past experience with Soundcraft includes the LX7, adds, “Soundcraft has always been one of my favorite desks — they have strong pre-amps and are really clean sounding. In this instance, expandability was important, as was simplicity, portability and the ability to handle multi-track recording through Logic/Pro Tools.”
This wish list had evolved from less accommodating experiences on other branded desks, which he had found less than intuitive. “Then I did a show where the SI Compact 32 was set up. I was really hesitant at first but the guy who had set it up literally took 10 minutes to explain the desk. It was a breeze. I knew then that I wanted a Soundcraft Si Compact.”
Drawing on the heritage of Soundcraft’s digital Si Series, the Si Compact packs high quality mixing facilities and Lexicon effects into a small footprint console. It does so without compromising a feature set that includes 24 recallable mic pre amps plus four stereo returns, AES in and 64 input option slot with a capacity to combine up to 40 of these inputs to mix; each input is equipped with compressors, gates, parametric EQ, high-pass filter and delay.
Howard is delighted to be carrying a brand that has such a high reputation In South Africa. “There is not a band that will complain about being mixed through a Soundcraft desk — and the name appears on most technical riders.
“This desk will now not leave my sight. Either myself or my technicians will always be present, even if we’re not mixing the sound. We’ll leave our other desks to handle the dry hire.”
Soundcraft mixing consoles are distributed in South Africa, along with the entire Harman Professional portfolio, by Wild and Marr.
