Fitted with four stereo mic/line inputs, the MH4 serves as either a dedicated front-of-house or monitor desk - or a combination of both - attributes which Adlib managing director Andy Dockerty had been seeking. The 48-channel desk went straight out with up-and-coming Liverpool band, The Coral, where colleague and sound engineer Dave Kay, was mixing at front-of-house. Andy Dockerty explained: "We are finding that in our marketplace - typically the 1,000-2,000 capacity venues - we need a reasonably high-spec desk in a relatively small footprint, which the engineers will be happy with. I liked Soundcraft’s Series 4, which delivered a lot of product in a small footprint. But the MH4, which can go at either end of the multicore, fills a nice gap in the marketplace and enables us to package our systems as competitively-priced one-offs, which is appealing to promoters and compatible with the style of work in which we specialise."
Kay adds. "It’s a very musical desk. Sonically it gives you the wow factor the second you start using it. It just sounds amazing. Soundcraft have really cleaned up the signal path - stripping out a lot of the old components - and it’s the kind of desk that makes you want to drive it harder, resulting in an even cleaner, transparent sound, reminiscent of the old valve technology. It’s also very well laid out, with a separate fader tray from the raked EQ and aux section, and the desk construction feels much more robust with a much higher build quality."
(Ruth Rossington)
