Regarded as one of the most architecturally and sonically impressive music venues in the world, the Berlin Philharmonic has installed a Soundcraft Vi3000 console in its Chamber Music Hall, adding to the Soundcraft Vi6 and a Studer Vista 9 console already in use.

Home to the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Chamber Music Hall also hosts concerts from visiting international artists using the Vi6 is in one of the two studios as a recording desk. The Vista 9 is used in the production room for live concert recordings and live broadcasts for radio, television, internet and cinema. The new Vi3000 serves FOH and monitors for live mixing.

‘We experienced five good years with the Vi6, before we decided that the new FOH desk is going to be a Vi as well,’ says Mirsat Neziraj of the Berlin Philharmonic. ‘We love the intuitive design of the surface of the Vi Series. The instruments are clearly arranged on the channel strips, making the handling almost feel like analogue desks, which in our opinions still have the best user interface. We especially wanted the Vi3000, because of the built-in stagerack which allows us to eliminate the side rack we used to have.’

One of the studios was configured in 2013 to house the Studer Vista 9 console for 5.1 mixes and recordings at 96kHz: ‘The consistent and fast operating concept of the Studer Vista has impressed us from the start,’ says Marco Buttgereit, a member of the audio team. ‘Because we often have guest sound engineers using our studios, it is important that they are able to familiarise themselves quickly with the technology.’

The standard that Neziraj maintains is important not only for the in-house orchestra, but also for the different user groups such as freelancers, apprentices/trainees and touring sound engineers that use the consoles. ‘They should be able to work on the desk without much training,’ Buttgereit adds.