"We have two in-house desks available to productions in the 900 seat theatre," explains Hughes. "Current analogue and digital mixers; both reputable boards from leading manufacturers. But when we get a more demanding production in we often decide to bring in something special - more cutting edge - to deliver the best production capabilities. I had seen the CDC8 on the CUK stand at last year's PLASA Focus and had been very impressed with the look of it. When the booking for Chester Operatic Society came in my thoughts went straight to the CADAC and I contacted Stuart Cunningham at CUK to see if it was at all possible that one might be ready and available for use on a live production."
With Cadac commencing production of the CDC8 ahead of its imminent commercial launch, CUK was able to supply a CDC8-16; an ultra-compact frame-size variant of the console with identical 128-channel I/O count, functionality and processing architecture as the full 32-channel version. The compact form factor and performance capabilities of the small frame variant ideally matched AVL Technical Services' production requirements, offering the I/O capability and large format touch screen operating interface of the 32 channel variant but requiring far less than the usual seat kill at the FOH mix position.
"From the first day load-in for the production I realised how good this desk was," continues Hughes. "Within half an hour I knew where everything was and operation was highly intuitive centred around the 24-inch touch screen. There is no need to look at pages within pages, the CDC8 has everything logically arranged on the one screen, and with the tight time frame from load-in to first performance, this was critical."
The CDC8 was deployed with the house JBL VRX system, comprising four flown VRX cabinets and two twin 18 inch SRX subs, controlled via a DBX DriveRack 482 and powered by Crown I-T4000 amplifiers. The Chester Operatic Society's production of Kiss Me Kate ran from 12 to 18 May.
(Jim Evans)
