Sound of Fantasia

London’s Royal Albert Hall has been screening a series of famous films over 2012, accompanied by a live soundtrack. In October, the London Philharmonic Orchestra accompanied selections from Walt Disney’s original Fantasia and Disney’sFantasia 2000.The live performance was mixed by a DiGiGo SD5 supplied by Sound by Design.

“We need an awful lot of channels for the work that we do here, but we are often limited in terms of space,” said Stephen Hughes, the Sound by Design’s project engineer for all of the company’s Royal Albert Hall events. “We used to use customised DiGiCo D1s with a fifth processing card, which gave us the channel count, processing and effects of a D5 Live but in a D1 footprint.

“As the technical demands of the shows we do are ever increasing, we were finding that even the D1s were reaching the limits of what we could achieve in the space needed, whether it was the physical inputs and outputs, or the creative ways in which the desks cope with intricate shows.”

Sound by Design bought three SD5 consoles after it was introduced at ProLight+Sound 2012.“The newest SD software, whether it’s the multi channel folding, the set spills, the DiGiTubes, or any of the other unique functions, has meant that we are now mixing in a completely different way to how we were on the D series, or could hope to on a desk by any other manufacturer.” said Hughes. “It really does open up the possibilities and allow for different approaches for a FoH engineer to take on the myriad of unique shows that we work on in this venue, whether it’s a standard classical, theatre style musical gala or rock concert.”
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