"We now have five employees plus we have to hire some technicians for the bigger shows. However, we want to get some bigger venues, to go on tour, and we are beginning to work for corporate shows in Montreal where the action is. At the same time we are trying to have better and more equipment in the store."
Tremblay was looking to buy some new lighting consoles and, because of the quantity of stock they had to buy, he wanted to make sure that he would really get value for money. "Another manufacturer had a console priced within our price range that we were interested in," he commented. "My lighting operator worked with it and it was just OK but we decided to put our heads together and search the internet to see if the ideal product was out there. We looked at a software solution and it was good but not very user-friendly and it was not oriented for the one-nighter."
The answer came from the LSC Lighting website, where Tremblay's lighting guys, Hugues Alexandre and Jonathan Morin, discovered that the maXim MP was not only in their price range but offered a comprehensive feature set. "Hugues and Jonathan did a great job - they had to read all the specifications and user's manuals," Eric said. "That meant a lot of time in front of their PC monitor! They also looked at the CD trainer for the maXim PaTPad. We believe that the maXim offered the best quality console in that price range on the market. It presents possibilities that even more expensive console don't offer."
Since purchsing the maXim MP, Tremblay states that he has had excellent service with quick replies to all of their questions. Hugues reports that he finds the maxim MP to be a very intuitive lighting console that is easy to operate and he particularly favours the Master fade in/out. Other features that have impressed Hugues are the available chase crossfade, the grab master (which he describes as "genius") and the yellow/red master which gives the operator a lot of control.
"I find the serial patch plus the moving lights patch is easy to do," continued Hugues. "The PaTPad is easy to learn and the moving light templates are simple to do and are very straightforward to personalise. I also find the effects parameters are very usable and accessible, the effect generator is easy to understand and the fan is genius. Being able to access presets and palettes live is very useful whilst the filters are easy to manage. Store + store + level = excellent! The maxim MP has a lot of playbacks for a small desk.
"I like the fact that you can manage the maXim like a small lighting board (Patch-Chase-Stack+Edition) yet still have access to attributes for the moving heads like on bigger desks. It's fast and easy to program a live show."
(Lee Baldock)
