A Lawo mc²66 mixing console is helping technical staff at the Zurich Opera House to explore and realise a wealth of new audio possibilities.
The console has already been put through its paces during rehearsals for a new season programme that includes productions of some canonical operatic pieces – Verdi’s La Traviata, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers, and Rossini’s The Silken Ladder.
On the first day of rehearsals, the balance between the different speaker groups was adjusted using an iPad, followed by a more precise set-up by a guest sound engineer, who used a laptop and a controller running the Mackie HUI Protocol. All three devices were connected to the mc²66 in the control room via a WLAN. With the rotary controls pre-programmed for EQ frequency, the controller functioned as a MIDI remote for the large console.
Christian Venghaus, who heads up the Zurich Opera House sound department, commented: “I particularly like the clear routing displays on the mc²66. Both on-screen and from the orange buttons we can immediately see what is routed. The number of possibilities available in the deeper layers of the console is also quite remarkable: for example, it is no problem to program fader starts, or similar functions. Nevertheless, on the control surface, operation is simple at all times.”
Highlighting the ability to configure and reconfigure the console for varying rehearsal requirements, Venghaus remarked that Lawo systems offer “an extremely high degree of networking and flexibility even in conditions where the highest quality of audio, safe operation, and ‘reproducibility’ are absolutely necessary – a requirement that will remain essentual for audio systems of the future.”
