A new Soundcraft Vi1 mixing console at the University of Delaware is utilized for football game audio as well as and other major events around campus.
Joe Dombroski, audio engineering technician at the college, as well as his colleagues at IT-University Media Services, were looking for a new board to complete the expanding audio needs of the university’s large events.
After comparing a number of products they chose the Soundcraft Vi1, purchased through New Jersey-based Total Video Products.
“This board is perfect for University Media Services needs,” statedsDombroski. “It’s mostly used for entertainment during home football games and larger events around campus including commencements. I’ve worked with Soundcraft for a long time and I still have a Soundcraft Series 5 that I will never get rid of. It’s a classic.”
Dombroski found the Vi1 to be an ideal fit for a variety of reasons. “It has so much horsepower in a small footprint, it’s great to be able to run every channel through one Cat-5 cable and know it can support it all,” he adds. “I believe that sonically the Vi Series are the best boards out there. They have warm sounding pre-amps that draw you in and the Lexicon reverbs make everything so smooth and natural. It’s surprising sometimes that it isn’t an analog board, considering how good it sounds.”
Dombroski also spoke highly of the Vi1’s Common Mode Rejection Ratio—the preamps’ ability to reject noise. “So many boards have issues with grounding and interference,” he notes. “They are quiet in the studio or on the bench but they light up with noise in the real world. I’ve never had a buzz or any sort of noise come out of the console. The number-one challenge of live audio is keeping things quiet—as soon as you have even five dB of extra noise it will degrade a mix.”
Along with the overall sound quality, Dombroski praised the setup and ease of use that the Vi1 offers. “The Vistonics is wonderful, having the ability to scan across the board and see clearly what the settings are is great,” he said. “It saves time and hassle instead of scrolling through many different menus. The multiple MADI cards are great and so convenient, giving so much flexibility to do a house mix or a multi-track mix, with endless options.”
The University of Delaware relies on other Harman Professional equipment as well, including JBL VRX and VP Series loudspeakers as well as BSS Audio processing.
