Having been part of Stockholm entertainment scene for nearly three centuries, Hamburger Börs is one of the Swedish capital’s best restected venues for everyting from live music to corporate events.
While the original club was demolished in the 1970s as the city’s underground system was extended, a new building took its place on the same site, and has since hosted Sammy Davis Junior, Liza Minnelli, Tower of Power, Grace Jones, and Rod Stewart. Now part of the Wallmans group of dinner show clubs, Hamburger Börs continues to stage international artists and prestigious events.
Reliable but aging FOH and monitor consoles recenetly made way for replacements in the form of a pair of Innovason Eclipse GT consoles with DioCore racks (one with 64 inputs and the second with 48 outputs to handle the monitor systems) and three SR16 mobile stageboxes to replace the venue’s old analogue snakes.
‘We’ve had two Innovason Grand Live consoles since 2001 and, while they still work perfectly well, they are quite old ladies now and it was time to upgrade to more modern technology,’ explaines FOH engineer and head of sound, David Granditsky. ‘We explored a number of other options, but we decided to stay with Innovason because they ticked all of our boxes in terms of system requirements and we’ve always had excellent support. We are a very demanding client from the point of view of technical support and service, and Brollan [Söderström of Electrosound, Innovason’s exclusive distributor in Sweden] and Innovason have never let us down. We have never, ever had to cancel a show due to technical problems.’
Granditsky was looking for a system based on an audio network that would minimise bulky analogue cable runs and allow the system to be readily configured. Onboard effects were also cited as an important factor, along with size and weight.
‘We sometimes need to move the monitor console down from the balcony where it is normally situated,’ Granditsky explains. ‘This is now a considerably less daunting task than previously. Also, the fact that the Eclipse has such a small footprint has enabled us to gain six seats. In terms of functionality, I particularly like the way that Innovason handles Overram functionality [the ability to edit individual parameters in existing snapshots] and offline editing on the Eclipse. We also like the Mars recorder – we used it the other day to record a live album that was released a couple of weeks after the opening of the current show and it worked like a dream. It’s also very convenient for setting up shows as we can sound check singers without the band being present, or vice-versa.’
‘This set-up means that the venue can swap quickly and easily between any number of system configurations, which was one of the major considerations for the new mixing system,’ confirms Brollan Söderström. ‘We can now switch over from one configuration to another with virtually no analogue repatching. Monitor outputs are swapped between the monitor and FOH desks by simply following the EtherSound hierarchy. The four stageboxes are set up in such a way that some are in constant use for managing the long-running live shows, while others are available for visiting guest productions, thus avoiding the need for analogue repatching between different productions and shows. The system is perfectly tailored to the venue’s requirements, and I know that David and the other sound guys at the club are delighted with the results.’
More: www.electrosound.se
More: www.innovason.com
