Six DiGiCo mixing consoles were recently installed at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa, California, in a renovation of the entire 14-acre campus’ audio mix infrastructure.
The campus’ largest facility is Segerstrom Hall, a 2,994-seat, opera house-style theatre, a venue for Broadway musicals, ballet and other large productions. The complex also includes the 1,704-seat Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall; the 375-seat Samueli Theater (a multipurpose facility for jazz, cabaret, theatre and special events); and the 53,000ft² Orange County Museum of Art. Organisations that call the centre home include the South Coast Repertory and three resident performance companies: the Pacific Symphony, the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, and the Pacific Chorale.
The DiGiCo mixing consoles installed include a Quantum225 at front-of-house (FOH) in the Samueli Theater, and another installed in the control room of the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall. Additionally, the Concert Hall has a Quantum338 Pulse that is brought into the audience space for shows that require an in-house mix position, while a second Quantum338 Pulse serves as either a ‘B’ console at FOH, or as a monitor console, as needed. Segerstrom Hall now similarly has a Quantum338 Pulse installed at its FOH mix position, with another one available for monitors. The installation, done by Apex Audio of nearby Huntington Beach, also includes seven DiGiCo SD-Racks spread across the venues, as well as four SD-MiNi Racks.
John Downey, head audio engineer at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, explained that the previous suite of consoles “weren’t being supported anymore”. The search for the next round of desks focused quickly on DiGiCo. “It was the brand and the quality product that everybody wanted, so it was a real easy decision,” he said, noting the frequency with which DiGiCo – and increasingly Quantum – appear on the contract riders he deals with.
The consistency of the Quantum operating system across all of the campus’ venues means Downey’s staff – A1 Timothy K. Schmidt at the Samueli Theater, and Phil Harris on monitors, plus James Wilcox, head audio engineer at Segerstrom Hall – can move smoothly between all the venues as needed.
“The ability to use a single surface that operates the same in all the spaces enables our engineers to be able to go from room to room and do what they need to do without any substantial learning curve,” Downey explained. “And then, to that end, everything we bought were nearly identical systems. All seven SD-Racks are identical and they can roll from space to space as needed. They’re all on HMA fibre and configured similarly.”
That same consistency also helps the staff with the wide variety of performance types hosted in these multiple venues, which can run from pop and classical music to Broadway shows to educational presentations. “Whether we need one channel or an entire console – or even two consoles for a show – everything is on the Optocore loop, as are the SD-Racks that drive my processors,” Downey said. “That allows me to load a file without having to massively reconfigure things to accommodate whichever ‘flavour’ we’re doing at the time.”
Chris LeBer, president of Apex Audio, had pointed out that capability to Downey a year ago when the updating process was just starting. “It’s a big complex of stages and venues, and they do a lot of different types of shows, so the connectivity between the consoles and their ease of learning and use was big factor in this choice,” LeBer said. “The way Quantum is laid out and the Optocore integration make it as though it was one console for the entire campus.”
But, of course, it’s not, and those consoles will get moved around the campus often. “They’re rugged, tour-proven consoles,” said LeBer. “It’s a big campus with a lot of stages, but for a DiGiCo, that kind of moving around is a piece of cake. Wherever they go, the workflow is the same. DiGiCo wasn’t just the right choice – it was really the only choice.”
