A new multi-function arts venue located in Southeast France, La Source placed its technical infrastructure high on its list of design criteria. ‘Being a new building, the technical specification was designed to be as contemporary and futureproof as possible,’ says technical director Gilles Barjot. ‘[Sales and rental company] Arpège Son Lumiere gave us an excellent demo of the DiGiCo SD8 and we were so impressed that we bought three.’
La Source has three principal roles – the first is educational, with the teaching facilities of the city’s Municipal Music School having moved into the new building; the second function is cultural, involving the local population in a range of events, both as audience and participants; while the third is toprovide high-quality facilities for a wide range of live music and theatrical performances.
Its three performance spaces comprise the Big Room with a capacity of 400-to-600 people, the Ampli (240 standing) and the Auditorium (119 seated). Two of the SD8s, supplied by DiGiCo distributor Apex Audio’s French office, are installed in the Big Room, at front-of-house and monitor positions, with the third fulfilling both functions in the Ampli. The former is connected to the onstage DiGiRack via Madi, with a Yamaha DME64N routing output signals to L-Acoustics LA8 amplifiers and dV-Dosc line array system. At the monitor position, the second SD8 provides mixes for 12 L-Acoustics 112P active monitors, two-way sidefills and three sets of Shure PSM700 in-ears. Meanwhile, in The Ampli the SD8 provides audio for another L-Acoustics FoH system and monitors.All audio within the system is at 48kHz, 24-bit resolution.
‘We use the SD8s on all the shows in both rooms and the sound is fantastic,’ says Barjot. ‘We stage a wide variety of shows and they cope with everything superbly well. Visiting engineers are always extremely impressed and, even if they haven’t used a DiGiCo before, the surface is so intuitive that they learn it extremely quickly.
‘We are really pleased with the DiGiCo consoles, which are doing a great deal to ensure that the local community is very impressed with every aspect of La Source.’
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