One of the country's flagship venues, Amsterdam's Paradiso, has recently been outfitted with a Venue D-Show system, and two of Holland's top rental companies have also invested heavily in Venue systems.
Story Sound, one of the country's largest rental houses, recently added a D-Show Profile and Mix Rack system to their three existing full-size Venue systems. Story Sound's Michael Story reports the acquisition allows them to offer a wider range of systems to their theatre-oriented customer base, with an increasing number of freelance engineers specifying Venue on their shows, including sound designers Bo Bruijs and Dennis Slot.
"We'd originally been attracted to Venue by its comprehensive plug-in support," reports Story. "But we were really impressed by the console's functionality overall, and even more so by its sound. People were commenting on hearing detail in the music they'd never been able to hear before. And the system doesn't add any colouration to the sound, which gives us much more freedom in terms of what we want to add at the design stage."
"The combination of Mix Rack and D-Show has provided us with a powerful product that out-performs the alternatives, at a competitive rate," says Story. "We're presently using Pro Tools LE for 18-channel recording, but are looking into using [Pro Tools] HD for upcoming theatre shows."
In the northern city of Groningen, rental company Menno Wolthuis Sound and Lights has also added a Venue system to its inventory. Owner, Menno Wolthuis, was looking to upgrade the company's aging analogue consoles with a digital package that was both versatile enough for the summer festival season and compact enough for the 1,000-seat theatres that occupy much of their winter season, say the company.
"Several of my staff engineers had suggested I have a look at the VENUE system," says Wolthuis. "After working with Ampco Belgium's system at the Eurosonic Festival, I was impressed enough to order a 48 in/16 out system immediately. It's just so fast, and so versatile, and it's sonically superior to the other systems we auditioned."
Menno points out that the addition of Digidesign's Personal Q (PQ) monitoring hardware, which allows performers to adjust their monitor mix onstage, allows the VENUE to double as a dedicated monitor console. "The support for Aviom personal monitoring provides even more integration potential," he adds.
(Claire Beeson)
