With Kobus van Rensburg at the helm of Blue Array, the company has supplied prominent international artists visiting South Africa. They also have a reputation for their talented audio engineers, who are some of the best in the country.
"There are many reasons we've gone the SD5 route," said Marinus Visser, head of audio at the company. "It's on every international rider, which was the main selling point. But for our shows, it was the ability of the console and all the things it can do, the enormous IO count and its exceptional audio quality. As Blue Array typically work on international productions, they've invested heavily in D&B Audiotechnik sound systems. It justifies having something that sounds so good complementing these amazing PA systems."
Since taking ownership of the SD5 in the last couple of weeks, the console has already gone out on an international show. "The only problem is that I just had to setup and assist the Amercian monitor engineer," reports Marinus, who would have loved to have operated it himself!
"The SD5 was something Blue Array has wanted for quite a while," commented Kyle Robson from DWR Distribution. "Blue Array is very good and everything they do is rock solid and professional. The SD5 was the first in the country and this was huge for me, absolutely like being a kid in the candy store. When I took the console out of the box, I had that very special feeling.
"The SD5 is in a league of its own," he continued. "That's the reason most riders ask for them. If you know how to use the baby console, you will know how to use the bigger one. It's easy to get around, and the only difference on the SD5 is the bigger surface and higher channel count. That's the great thing with DiGiCo. All the consoles sound identical and the software is the same."
(Jim Evans)
