Premier US live event company LSAV serves theatre events, corporate evets, conferences, exhibitions and trade shows with onsite technicians available to provide support. LSAV’s own staff regularly work with freelance engineers, and have found that its selection of Soundcraft Si Expression, Si Performer and Vi3000 mixing consoles offer both the flexibility and ease of use for both in-house and contract engineers.

‘Our clients want the job done, but we don’t always deal with guest operators who have an extensive audio background,’ says LSAV Audio Engineer/Project Manager, Chris Huether. ‘We like Soundcraft a lot for this reason, and because there is built-in flexibility. Since we do not have the space on show sight for outboard racks, we look for that plug-and-play capability and the Soundcraft consoles deliver.’

During four days of presentations at a recent national sales conference, the LSAV team managed the live sound by relying on stage cues, which not only required an immediate response from the operator, but also intuitive on-the-fly control of the mixing console. This, coupled with the challenge of minimising the FOH footprint, was not a problem for the Soundcraft Vi3000 used at the event.

‘The fibre options of the Vi3000 allowed our team to position the console exactly where the producer wanted it to be,’ Huether says. ‘We used two Compact Stagebox 36x16s with AES option cards and Madi fibre-optic cards. With the channel count and I/O, I had all my functions native and no longer needed to add anything to the system. This helped when we were routing the fibre cables through the ceiling, since none were allowed on the floor.

‘The Soundcraft support team is always there for us,’ he adds. ‘Soundcraft support and the console features are always at my fingertips.’