Two Soundcraft Consoles Implemented At Contemporary Music Theatre In France

Contemporary musical theatre La Citrouille in Brittany, France recently upgraded its technical infrastructure with the addition of two new Soundcraft digital consoles from Harman Professional distributor Eurolive.

The newly released Vi3000 will principally be used for front of house mixing for the wide range of performances and events hosted at the venue, while the smaller Si Expression will handle monitors. The consoles were selected following live demonstrations facilitated by Eurolive.

House technician and general manager Benjamin Bouet, who has been with La Citrouille since it was a studio operation before also opening the 420-seat theatre in 2009, explains that the venue was ready to upgrade from the previous Soundcraft MH3 analog console to the digital realm. In addition, the previous monitor desk didn’t have the required adjustable low-cut filter.

When the new Vi3000 was used for the first time, with the group Miossec, the sound engineer arrived with his show on a USB stick (from a Soundcraft Vi4). “They just had to re-patch a few effects in the console,” says Bouet. “It was perfect, and a big time saver.”

He notes that Soundcraft’s release of the Vi3000 was great in terms of timing, as it sits in the portfolio between the Vi1 (“very popular with technicians but insufficient faders for us”) and the more expensive Vi4 and Vi6. He adds that the new console saves valuable space at front of house and, “the Dante capability of this console also attracted me, and it will enable us to make multi-track recordings of some concerts. It opens up new perspectives.”

For monitors, Bouet needed a console with at least 30 inputs on the same fader to avoid losing time by constantly changing layers on the menu. The Si Expression 3 met the requirement, with multiple facets of the worksuface easily accessible.

“Soundcraft has a reputation for building robust, reliable desks, and this was another important factor,” he concludes. “In fact, Soundcraft consoles have been in use for 20 years in our studios and are still working.”

Soundcraft products are distributed in France, as part of the Harman Professional portfolio, by SCV Audio.

Soundcraft
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