O'Connor comments: "Rambert wanted to spend wisely on a desk that could fulfil the demands of the company's increasingly complex show pieces. Our main goal was to find a desk that had all the flexibility and features of a digital desk, but with the usability and great sound quality of an analogue desk. After a lot of research, the Midas Pro series was the only desk that met our requirements."
JP Cavaco, sales manager at LMC London, made the sale to Rambert.
O'Connor notes: "When I joined Rambert, I was aware of a long history between the sound department here and LMC and that was something I was keen to maintain. As authorised dealer of Midas consoles, LMC have provided great support for our old heritage desk and now they will be there to support our new PRO3, maintaining the ties between the two companies."
"Having purchased the very first Midas Heritage 1000 from LMC over 10 years ago, Rambert already had a good idea of the superior sound that Midas consoles can deliver", says JP. "The heritage H1000 has been fantastic."
"I've always been a big fan of Midas consoles so was very happy when I came to Rambert to have another Midas console with the fantastic mic-pre's of the Heritage. Rambert is the only contemporary dance company to tour with an orchestra. With the variety of different types of music, orchestras, bands, electronic music etc that the company performs the Heritage has always been up to the job." Tinson adds, "Having previously heard the Midas XL8 and PRO6, we were convinced of the sound quality these desks are capable of. The PRO3 was the natural choice due to its space-saving footprint and ability to save engineers so much set-up time."
O'Connor explains that he and Tinson have been employing the PRO3 on a night-by-night basis, programming a different show into the desk almost every night and building a catalogue of show files as they go. "We have had the console for just over a month now and it is already proving very user-friendly. Previously I was using so much outboard that we really had very little time to set up a show. With the PRO3 we are saving time with presets for EQ and delay, and I am storing venue presets so that when I go back to visit a venue, I can reload those venue settings."
"We looked at other digital desks but we always felt that we were compromising on sound", says Tinson. "With the PRO3 we felt we are getting the best of both worlds."
O'Connor adds: "Feedback from other engineers has been very positive. As it is such a new desk and one that probably hasn't been to a lot of the theatre venues we visit, engineers have been keen to find out about it. We keep hearing the same comments about the desk being repeated, how impressed they are with the quality of the mic-pre's (for a digital desk), the analogue usability of it (for a digital desk), the colour coding features and the pop groups." He adds, "The sound quality is just so good, very natural, and it lives up to the high expectations of Rambert and the venues it tours."
(Claire Beeson)
