One of the latest venues to take on board a 48-channel MH3 is Dublin's hybrid venue, the 700-capacity Temple Bar Music Centre, which doubles between live music and pure dance, and is linked up for recording. Audio Warehouse, Soundcraft's Southern Ireland distributors, supplied the desk. At the hub of the city's arts and music development, Temple Bar Music Centre has been run by proprietor Paddy Dunning since it opened seven years ago.
The venue operates in conjunction with The Sound Training Centre upstairs, which provides job-specific, product-based training within the entertainment industries. It was their engineer Phil Hayes who recommended the MH3 as the natural successor to the old Soundcraft Vienna 2, which was due to be replaced. "The FOH mixing desk has to cope with everything, from touring national and international bands," says house engineer Canice Mills. "With a lot of bands bringing their own engineers, the MH3 enables us to mix monitors from the front-of-house position."
In particular he drew attention to the advantages of separate EQ with mid-sweep, which can be switched between the Group and Return paths on the output section. Both this and the desire to bring the best out of the venue's flown JBL system, were the deciding factors in the purchasing decision. Mills says: "While Temple Bar does accommodate touring monitor boards, 70% of the shows are mixed on their resident board."
Already sound engineers have remarked on how sharp and tight the MH3's EQ sounds. "The fact that you have mid-sweeps and full control gives you a much sweeter, more effective EQ," believes Mills. The venue also has an armoury of BSS equipment in its outboard rack, including crossover settings stored in Omnidrive and three Varicurve FCS 920s to handle the taps on the JBL delay cluster.
"The success of the MH3 shows the extent to which we have been able to offer the flexibility first seen in the MH4, to a wider section of the market," says Soundcraft product manager, Andy Brown.
(Sarah Rushton-Read)
