07/2004
Lawrence White has only been head of sound at Cork Opera since December 03, yet already his influence is profound. "We have an old DeltaMax PA which is OK, but when I arrived the venue was in dire need of a new desk." The solution proved to be a Yamaha DM2000, but the influences that took them to that purchase decision are interesting.
"First off the ease of set-up was important;" said White. "Patching is greatly reduced because we need much less outboard gear. Secondly it's fully automated which suits our theatre work. Lots of scenes being typical for a show, with lots of mic channels that need to fly on and fly off." White is native of Zimbabwe, with extensive studio and live mixing experience in South Africa, hence the slightly unorthodox expressions, but his meanings are absolutely clear.
"We first had a DM2000 come in with a touring production of the Sound of Music back in April, Easter time in fact, and it was great." White had been impressed by more beside. "I'd been mixing a production of Hamlet with a rented in O2R96 so I had become familiar with the operating system. Then a production of Stomp came through, their engineer was using a DM2000 and he let me play around with it. It was a complete pleasure. Hence the addition of the DM2000 for Sound of Music."
Even so, with your background in theatre and studio work, how was the transition to digital? "It was fairly painless. Well, in fact the theatre's original plan was to get a new analogue desk, but I made a presentation - I pointed out that we could go that route but we'd be buying nothing but a desk, so they'd have to budget for effects and dynamic controls as well." A persuasive argument for any finance committee.
White took delivery of his new desk, supplied through AC Lighting's Leeds office, in May, "I also had the new V2.0 software onboard, and added the new AD8HR, the remote 8 channel XLR input module. Great for extra flexibility."
But ease of operation and features weren't White's only consideration when he made his decision. "It was when I was working in studios in South Africa that I first started to see Yamaha digital desks, back in 1991-92. No-one has had as much time in live mix digital desks as Yamaha so I knew that by now, twelve years later, any bugs would be completely ironed out." And now you have the desk does it represent value for money? "For what the DM does, even if you're using the old V1.0 software ... well, what's the cost of 96 compressors on their own?" Fair point.
A production of Man of la Mancha opens next week and runs till July 10th, it will be White's second full-on production, did he have any reservations going into fit-up? "No, and I've got some new radio mics to try as well. This machine is deadly reliable, I've had not a glitch on any of the one-offs I've used it on so far. I'm looking forward to it."
