Bertie Hunter, technical director at Noise Control Audio (NCA), comments, "The event side of NCA has really taken off this year with lots of high profile bookings, and we knew we needed to buy a good quality mixing desk. NCA have spent 10 years making some of the purest sounding speakers in the industry. We are extremely picky about every element in the PA chain and we needed to be just as picky with the choice of mixing desk.
"JP (Cavaco, sales manager) from LMC London and Rob (Hughes , UK customer support manager at Midas & Klark Teknik) came down to demo the desk for us and from the moment we heard the audio come out of the desk we knew it would be perfect to drive our system. Once we actually got our hands on the desk, it took no more than 10 minutes to feel completely comfortable with it, and the use of POP groups make mixing on the console a pleasure."
Hunter continues, "We have had the desks out with us every weekend since we got them. PRO2 is a perfect companion to our speakers. I use the desk mainly as a monitor board; the use of flip to faders and the new MCA function is really handy and makes mixing monitors almost as easy as FOH. I have also found that the use of EQ is minimal, and the sound of the pre amps is so good that only slight adjustments are ever needed."
The desks were very busy on the festival circuit this summer, including the Tree of Light project (part of the London 2012 festival for the Olympics), the Strummer of Love festival, the Red Bull Arena at Notting Hill Carnival and Bestival. More recently, the desks took part in the Red Bull Culture Clash for Channel One Sound System at Wembley Arena.
Hunter, who, as technical director, heads up NCA's events department, explains that the events provide a useful publicity tool for their loudspeakers, "We have recently invested heavily in equipment, doubling our stock of microphones, consoles and of our own speakers. The main reason for this is the industry's response to hearing our products, which has been only positive. We are only a small manufacturing company but our equipment is present at most festivals and events across the country (14 Stages at Glastonbury is probably our biggest.) I also support and work closely with a lot of our UK and European clients, notably the Outlook Festival in Croatia, for which we designed and co-managed, alongside PF Events, the system in The Moat, to much international acclaim."
Hunter's experience with LMC has been a good one, "The support from JP has been unbeatable. When you invest in a product like this you want to know you have all the back-up you need. We have received nothing but outstanding service and we will definitely use LMC for future investments."
(Jim Evans)
